vM 




«3|C 




^s 






.c 

18 
Co 


4812 




<3 

49 

py l 


S£3 E*^ 


1 ft 


i 

c< <Kat 














■ 




•< 






!§§|t; 


- 










**S^ 


< 


— c *^& 


t^jy.- 


*T <S«1 


£L ■*?" 


^gj£ ^i 




*~«c -CBS 


^JSSiC ■* 


" "•^■IT 








< 2^5^ 


^N 




c <■ 


* ^J5fe 


cJStl— , " 


"ij—^"" 




**- ' r^^ i»r* 








ft 


1 








^1 


-**"«1 


^ ' iS^ 


fl 


«^V 






^ ■':' 




1 




♦ 


^" *=-J8pI 




.<:«: <- 


^"■•.^3BI 





# LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.? 



1 
i 


^3CyL 


P S.4JU 2. 






^Ae// 


i"«'49 


• 


V 


JNITBD STATES OP AMERICA 


U^^lfe^'*** <%.^> < a|>^^^> / %> , %'^>^ < %''^^gj 



Captain ^atarfc attfo Captain |frtL 



A POEM 
BY LEIGH HUNT. 



THE THIRD EDITION. 
WITH 

A NEW PREFACE, REMARKS ON WAR, 
AND NOTES 

DETAILING 

THE HORRORS ON WHICH THE POEM IS FOUNDED. 




LONDON : 

CHARLES GILPIN, 5, BISHOPSGATE WITHOUT. 

1849, 



7K 






?/^ 



r* 3 



IS4-1 



LONDOX : 

J. CKWIN, GRESHAM STBAM PRESS, 

BUCKLERSBURY. 






A FEW MOEE FIRST WORDS, 



OCCASIONED BY 



IMMEDIATE EVENTS. 



Since this book went to press, the Peace 
Congress at Paris has added to the importance 
of the movements against war, and the startling 
letter of Mr. Gurney corroborated the finan- 
cial arguments of Mr. Cobden and others. 
All the reasoning which has been adduced on 
the other side of the question may be found in 
the columns of the Times newspaper, set forth 
with the usual wit and fine writing which dis- 
tinguish that extraordinary journal. But the 
reasoning is not new, nor does it seem very 
self-satisfied. The instincts of the writer's 
a 2 



IV A FEW MORE FIRST WORDS, 

better genius are against it, whatever his 
" knowledge of the world," or his sense of the 
political expediency of the moment, may induce 
him to say in favour of common-places. 

It is related of Queen Victoria, that when 
she heard of the first war that broke out within 
the bounds of the empire since her accession 
to the throne, her Majesty said, with the tears 
in her eyes, that she " had hoped to have a 
bloodless reign." I know not if the story be 
true ; but it is in unison with all that is under- 
stood of her sensible and considerate nature. 
And who indeed can doubt, that she would 
fain have every one of her subjects as safe and 
sound as peace and prosperity could make 
him ? Is a time never to come, when the 
desire of every human heart, from the throne 
to the cottage, shall work out a corresponding 
determination? Shall we acquiesce in an evil, 
and think it irremediable, merely because it is 
enormous ? That may be an argument with 
superstition, and with other slavish states of 
the human mind. It was once an argument 
against interfering with plague and pesti- 



OCCASIONED BY IMMEDIATE EVENTS. V 

lence. But we now take steps against 
pestilence, because it is at our doors. Shall 
we take none against war, merely because it 
tears our friends and children to pieces at 
a distance ? 

We know what the Prime Minister thinks 
of war. We know what the majority of 
statesmen, both in England and France, think 
of the inexpediency of it at the present mo- 
ment. But the ministers and statesmen of 
other countries, it is argued, may not be so 
wise, and they are under Sovereigns very 
different from our own. 

Refuse them the supplies, says Mr. Gurney. 
Refuse them for your own sake, or wars will 
make you bankrupt. 

Refuse them, says Mr. Cobden, for humanity 
and decency's sake ; and refuse them also, (if 
that is not sufficient,) for the sake of the very 
considerable chance of non-return. You are 
lending money for bad purposes, to men who 
have repeatedly been insolvent. 

This admonition has been strangely called a 
violation of the principles of free trade ; as if 



VI A FEW MORE FIRST WORDS, 

freedom of action, and indifference to its con- 
sequences, were identical. It might as well be 
argued, that a druggist had an equal right to 
sell poison to the best and worst man in his 
neighbourhood, and that it would be mere 
om'ciousness in a by-stander to warn him 
against the mistake. 

Elemental necessity in the nature of things 
(like poison itself, or hydrogen), or unavoida- 
bleness, owing to the passions of men (which 
might amount to the same thing), or expedi- 
ency in the particular instances, must either be 
the grounds on which war is defended, or the 
advocate must fairly say, at once, " It is a 
perplexing and painful subject, and I do not 
choose to argue it." Now, unless arguments 
have been advanced, which I have overlooked 
in the perusal, this latter determination, how- 
ever it may seem to have talked otherwise, 
appears to me to be the real state of the case 
at present with those who could surely argue 
better than they do, if they went to the root 
of the matter at all. 

I still, therefore, cannot but think it incum- 



OCCASIONED BY IMMEDIATE EVENTS. Vll 

bent on a hater of war to endeavour to render 
it as intelligible and hateful as possible. 



To descend to a climax of " tremendous 
insignificance," (as the Gascon gentleman 
said,) I am afraid that the references of some 
of the notes to their authorities, in this edition 
of my poem, are incorrect. The copier had 
omitted them ; illness has prevented my going 
to the British Museum to ascertain them ; and 
I have been unable to procure the books in 
other quarters. But due pains will be taken 
for their rectification, should the poem be 
republished ; and, at all events, the writer 
feels that he is under no necessity of vouching 
for his veracity. The passages extracted speak 
for themselves ; — to say nothing of his cha- 
racter as an honest man. 

One word more. The first and second edi- 
tions of the poem were dedicated to a noble 
and learned Lord, for whom the writer has 
never ceased to entertain great and grateful 
respect ; but as his lordship's opinions on the 
subject appear to have undergone some modi- 



Vlll A FEW MORE FIRST WORDS, ETC. 

fications that might have rendered the address 
to hiin not so proper, I have done what I 
thought least unbecoming to the space which 
it occupied, by leaving it unappropriated to 
anybody. 

LEIGH HUNT. 

October \2th, 1849. 



PREFACE 



PRESENT EDITION, 

CONTAINING FURTHER REMARKS ON THE IMPORTANCE 
OF THE SUBJECT. 



The poetical portion of this book, together 
with the remarks on the Duty of considering 
the Horrors of War, 8fc, was first published 
in the year 1835. The notes, which detail 
those horrors, as described by soldiers them- 
selves, or by the historians of soldiers, on 
military authority, now appear for the first 
time ; and I have added a few to the remarks. 
Of the poetry (if, without being immodest, I 
may venture to speak of it at all, and to apply 
to myself a term used in criticising painters) I 

b 



X PREFACE. 

would observe, in passing, that it is written in 
the Author's -later and more spiritual manner, 
which experience led him to adopt after quitting 
the material school of Dryden; and that he 
looks upon it, in regard to expression, as one 
of the least faulty of his productions. I hope 
he need not add, that he is far from wishing 
any comparison to be instituted between him- 
self and that master, whose powers would 
" cut up " into half a dozen cadets of reputation, 
in schools greater than his own. I only mean 
to say, that the author of Absalom and 
Ahithophel, and of the Fables from Chaucer, 
Sfc:, is inferior, as an imaginative guide, to the 
poets whom he himself venerated, and to that 
innermost delicacy of perception, which they 
included in natures no less robust. 

The notes, to which I have just drawn the 
reader's attention, I withheld from the first 
edition of the poem, for reasons which are 
given in the remarks. In the second edition, 
I omitted the worst part of the horrors which 
the poem itself contained, assigning also 
reasons for the omission, which no longer need 



PREFACE. XI 

be regarded. I now reprint the poem entire, 
and subjoin the horrors on which it was 
founded, not out of any regard for what are 
considered attractions of that kind (than which 
I hold nothing to be more indicative of a 
wrong state of mind and feeling), but in 
counteraction to the neutralising assertions of 
those who maintain that everybody is agreed 
respecting the horrors of war, and that the 
only difficulty is how to find a remedy for 
them. 

I reply to these persons, that supposing 
everybody to be agreed on that point, every- 
body is far from being agreed to the same 
purpose, or with the same amount of knowledge 
and sympathy — that the agreement, which, in 
most instances, is little else than faint and 
verbal, is too often assumed for the purpose 
of getting rid of the subject — and that, in 
order to prove the zeal for discovering the 
remedy, it would be as well, in future, not 
to confine the agreement to the affirmation, 
but to take some step in the direction of the 
search. 

62 



Xll PREFACE. 

I am not a writer (as I have before ob- 
served) whose habit it is to deal in painful 
subjects, however I may be forced, now and 
then, by a sense of duty, out of the track of 
pleasant ones. It is not my custom to invite 
the attention of my readers to wounds and 
sores. I am sometimes accused of doing the 
reverse; of finding too many pleasures in 
pains ; too much of the " soul of goodness in 
things evil ; " nor have I failed to accompany 
the present exposure with intimations of that 
comfort, — of that beautiful, and, to me, 
irrefutable certainty. My belief in the good- 
ness of Nature, and in the final happiness of 
all things, is unbounded. The very pain 
through which Nature works, considering the 
beauty that accompanies it, is a proof to me 
that her object is great and noble. I accept 
it with exultation, even if I perish in the 
course of it; and I accept it with transport, 
believing that everything will be found right 
and joyous in its immortal consummation. 

But human beings meantime, by the in- 
citement of Nature herself, are among the 



PREFACE. Xlll 

instruments of human progression ; and as it 
is specially incumbent on those who are of a 
pleasurable tendency, not to shrink from the 
communion of pain, but to see what they can 
do, either towards bearing and helping to bear 
it, or to hasten its termination, so I would 
say, to any man of sense and feeling who takes 
up this volume, and who has not yet happened 
to turn his attention to the great cause ad- 
vocated by the societies of Peace and Brother- 
hood, — Read my verses, or not, as you please; 
read or not, as you please, the remarks on 
war and statesmen ; — but read, by all means, 
the notes detailing the horrors of war ; — read 
them, and reflect on them, if it be but for half 
an hour (for no pain need be longer than is 
requisite for a good result) ; and if, at the 
end of that half hour, they have not supplied 
the casting vote in favour of whatever step 
it may be in your power to take on the side 
in question, — be it no greater than sixpence 
to a subscription, or a word of encouragement 
to those who can better afford to give it, — 
then sense and feeling have reasons for de- 



XIV PREFACE. 

clining to assist humanity, which it is beyond 
the faculties of my mind to conceive. 

As to those who have considered the question 
enough already, perhaps with too great emotion, 
I say to them, — Don't read the horrors at all, 
whether in prose or verse. Confine yourselves 
to the March, and the Ball-room, and to the 
peaceful militations of Captain Pen. Nay, 
read not even those, if they associate them- 
selves with ideas too painful. It is enough 
that you have suffered pain already, and have 
sympathised to some purpose. But admit the 
book, nevertheless, into your house. Let your 
children see it. Let them grow up acquainted, 
not only with drums and trumpets, but with 
what comes after the trumpet and the 
drum. The happy nature of childhood is 
seldom liable to impressions too serious. But 
impression will be made ; and, by-and-by, it 
may be useful. 

Nobody, I believe, will dispute the propriety 
of designating the cause a " great cause." It 
may not have yet attained to the prosperity 
entitling it to the honours of a " great fact ; " 



PREFACE. XV 

though it is a fact which is growing daily, 
and one, it may be assumed, of no despicable 
dimensions. But a greater cause, except that 
of the poor, (and there is no mean link between 
both,) is hardly conceivable. And the op- 
position to it, and sometimes contempt of it, 
are proofs of the greatness ; for they show the 
difficulties through which it forces its way, — 
amounting, says the contempt, to "impossi- 
bility." It is what contempt has said to every 
great cause, till prosperity has won its adhesion. 
The Anti-Corn-Law movement was treated 
with contempt till it became a "great fact." 
Reform was treated with contempt in like 
manner. Sir Thomas More treated heresy, 
and Strafford treated revolution, with contempt. 
The Jews treated Christianity with contempt ; 
and Christianity (not, indeed, of the most 
Christian sort) returned the contempt till the 
other day, when Judaism was found to be, if 
not a very great fact, yet a very rich and 
respectable fact, — at least, in the City of 
London ; and, for my part, I heartily wish it 
success everywhere, seeing what a Christian 



XVI PREFACE. 

thing it is, and what an example it sets of 
good behaviour. Everything has been treated 
with contempt, which contradicted, even in 
the gentlest manner, (the more indeed on that 
account,) the preconceptions, and therefore 
the self-love, of the contemners. 

" But it is contrary to human nature," say 
these gentlemen, "to the passions of men, 
that there should be no war. You must alter 
the creature himself first — make him another 
being." 

How do they know? And from what do 
they reason ? They reason from the speck of 
time called history. They reason from an 
ignorance of the vast measurements of time to 
come, of the mystery of being itself, and of 
all which it is in the power of time and being 
to effect. If, in so short a space of time as 
four thousand years, or even as the twenty 
or thirty thousand of the orientalist, or the 
myriads themselves of the geologist (of the 
humanity of which we know nothing); if, in 
short, during the little space of time of which 
we have any knowledge or tradition, war has 



PREFACE. XV11 

been modified as much as it has been, — softened 
and civilised, — made a thing even of courtesy 
and consideration, — why may it not be modified 
in proportion, as time advances, or not be 
done away with altogether? Who is to say 
where the modification is to stop ? Especially, 
now that the world have got a press, and 
wisdom need never be forced back, and rail- 
roads and electrical intercourse have arrived, 
and the sense of the comfort, and even the 
necessity of neighbourly communion must con- 
tinue advancing ? 

There was once a time when inquisitors 
would have laughed in your face, if you told 
them that inquisitions would be abolished ; 
when cannibals would have laughed in your 
face, and appealed to your " passions," if you 
told them that cannibalism would be abolished ; 
when our British ancestors, sitting with their 
legs in ditches instead of drawing-rooms, and 
their bodies naked and painted, instead of 
being invested with the elegancies of Mr. 
Nichol, would have thought a man out of his 
senses, if by any possibility of imagination he 



XV111 PREFACE. 

could have conceived the celestial advent of a 
pair of cotton stockings, or the millennium of 
Bunhill-row. For, not to mention (they would 
have said) the inconsistency of such luxurious 
states of existence, how could any true Briton, 
tattooed with glory, ever give up the enchanting 
faces of sun and moon, with which he deco- 
rates his stomach ? Or, how could the passions 
of such of us as reside in York, ever permit 
us to put an end to wars with the natural 
enemies that inhabit London ? 

Now London and York fight no more, though 
they fought in the times of the ancient Britons. 
Lancashire and Surrey fight no more, though 
they fought in the times of the Saxons. 
And they fight no more, simply because they 
have discovered the inconvenience of fighting, 
and prefer living in neighbourly brotherhood. 
What, then, is to hinder France and England 
from fighting no more — as intercourse in- 
creases, and the vine-grower learns to consider 
the soldier of no earthly use in his exchange 
of goods with the manufacturer? 

There was a time when no Scotchman sat 



PREFACE. XIX 

down to dinner with a neighbour, without 
sticking his dirk into the table by the side of 
his trencher, as a caution in case of argument, 
and an intimation of the sort of point with 
which it might be necessary to conclude it. 
Does he do so now? Yet his "passions" are 
the same. Must he of necessity vent them in 
the same manner? Must he stick a dagger 
into somebody, in some part of the world, before 
he can feel comfortable with his "passions?" 
Before he can settle his difference of opinion 
with a papal or anti-papal antagonist? And 
if not he, why anybody ? If not anybody, why 
a nation? The Scotchman appeals, perhaps, 
to a court of law — or, if he is wiser, to arbitra- 
tion ; and the state of opinion, in his once 
pugnacious country, is such, that the arbiters 
are as little under the necessity of enforcing 
their award by a file of soldiers, as Scotchmen 
after dinner are under the necessity of fighting 
out an appeal to their host. What is to hinder 
the growth of such feelings from intersocial to 
international good sense? 

Oh ! but we shall grow too commercial, too 



XX PREFACE. 

mechanical, and, above all, too effeminate, for 
want of occasionally blowing each other to bits ; 
of shrieking for water, and for termination to 
our misery, on fields of battle ; and of the fires, 
massacres, and worse horrors, of cities that are 
besieged. 

Why so? Do not other acquirements pro- 
gress, as well as those of commerce ? Do not 
the minds of the commercial progress with 
them, and issue forth to advantage on the 
arenas of legislation? Do these minds hate 
books, and languages, and fine arts, and intel- 
lectual and moral progress of any kind ? And, 
nevertheless, do they not inhabit strenuous and 
active bodies, that go through more fatigue in 
a session than soldiers do for years, except 
during an actual campaign ? Does mechanism 
itself not take poetical and exalting shapes in 
the wonders of steam and electricity ? And as 
to education, why need education cease to be 
robust and noble, because men have considered 
the subject more closely, and seen into the 
bodily as well as mental wants of its disciples ? 
Why may it not, indeed, become far nobler 



PREFACE. XXI 

than it is, and substitute manly training of all 
kinds, within the bounds of reason — for in- 
structions how to grow mad, and organise one 
another's death and misery ? 

Great qualities may undoubtedly be fetched 
out by war, and may adorn it. They may 
blind us even to its calamities. Nature, in 
the course of the great working of her designs, 
will have no misery unexalted or unadorned 
by moral qualities. She will insist on com- 
forting us by the way. But are we to refuse, 
on that account, her incitements to advance — 
to enter happier regions of time and wisdom ? 
If so, why does she put the thoughts into our 
heads? and into heads, observe, not of the 
merely simple and believing, but of some of 
the greatest men that have instructed, and that 
have altered the earth? Why did Plato, and 
Bacon, and Sir Thomas More himself, specu- 
late on their " Utopias ?" Why did the French 
philosopher endeavour to laugh down war? 
And why has there existed scarcely a philo- 
sopher of any nation, or man of common sense 
either, who has not both ridiculed and deplored 



XX11 PREFACE. 

it? What made Henry the Fourth himself, 
Frenchman and conqueror as he was, antici- 
pate the feelings of the Peace and Brotherhood 
Societies, and propose to set up Arbitration in 
its stead? 

But I am entering into a new discussion, 
when I intended only an advertisement. Be- 
sides, I am afraid that the absurdity, with which 
the question in favour of war is begged, has 
been leading me, now and then, into a tone 
hardly serious enough for the grave matter 
which follows. 

To the gravest portion of that matter, if the 
reader is not yet thoroughly acquainted with 
it, or has not yet been led to take any steps 
towards the prevention of what it records, I 
again beg his earnest attention. 

LEIGH HUNT. 

Kensington, 

July 17th, 1849. 



ADVERTISEMENT 



FIRST EDITION. 



This Poem is the result of a sense of duty, 
which has taken the Author from quieter 
studies, during a great public crisis. He obeyed 
the impulse with joy, because it took the shape 
of verse ; but with more pain, on some accounts, 
than he chooses to express. However, he has 
done what he conceived himself bound to do ; 
and if every zealous lover of his species were 
to express his feelings in like manner, to the 
best of his ability, individual opinions, little in 
themselves, would soon amount to an over- 
whelming authority, and hasten the day of 
reason and beneficence. 



XXIV ADVERTISEMENT. 

The measure is regular, with an irregular 
aspect, — four accents in a verse, — like that of 
Christabel, or some of the poems of Sir Walter 
Scott : — 

Captain Sword got up one day — 

And the flag full of honour, as though it could feel. 

He mentions this, not, of course, for readers 
in general, but for the sake of those daily 
acceders to the list of the reading public, whose 
knowledge of books is not yet equal to their 
love of them. 



ON THE 

DUTY OF CONSIDERING THE HORRORS 

AND THE 

ALLEGED NECESSITY OF WAR: 

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN A POSTSCRIPT TO 
THE FIRST EDITION. 



The object of this poem is to show the horrors of 
war, the false ideas of power produced in the minds 
of its leaders, and, by inference, the unfitness of 
those leaders for the government of the world. 

The author intends no more offence to any 
one than can be helped : he feels due admiration 
for that courage and energy, the supposed mis- 
direction of which it deplores; he heartily ac- 
knowledges the probability, that that supposed 
misdirection has been hitherto no misdirection, 
but a necessity — but he believes that the time 
is come when, by encouraging the disposition to 

B 



I REMARKS ON WAR. 

question it, its services and its sufferings may be 
no longer required ; and he would fain tear asunder 
the veil from the sore places of war ; — would show 
what has been hitherto kept concealed, or not 
shown earnestly, and for the purpose; — would 
prove, at all events, that the time has come for 
putting an end to those phrases in the narratives 
of warfare, by which a suspicious delicacy is 
palmed upon the reader, who is told, after every- 
thing has been done to excite his admiration of 
war, that his feelings are " spared" a recital of 
its miseries — that "a veil" is drawn over them 
— a "truce" given to descriptions which only 
" harrow up the soul," &c. 

Suppose it be necessary to " harrow up the 
soul," in order that the soul be no longer har- 
rowed ? Moralists and preachers do not deal after 
this tender fashion with moral, or even physical 
consequences, resulting from other evils. "Why 
should they spare these? Why refuse to look 
their own effeminacy in the face, — their own 
gaudy and overweening encouragement of what 
they dare not contemplate in its results ? Is a 



REMARKS ON WAR. 6 

murder in the streets worth attending to, — a single 
wounded man worth carrying to the hospital, — 
and are all the murders, and massacres, and fields of 
wounded, and the madness, the conflagrations, the 
famines, the miseries of families, and the rickety 
frames and melancholy bloods of posterity, only 
fit to have an embroidered handkerchief thrown 
over them ? Must " ladies and gentlemen" be 
called off, that they may not " look that way," 
the "sight is so shocking?" Does it become 
us to let others endure, what we cannot bear 
even to think of? 

Even if nothing else were to come of in- 
quiries into the horrors of war, surely they would 
cry aloud for some better provision against their 
extremity after battle, — for some regulated and 
certain assistance to the wounded and agonised, — 
so that we might hear no longer of men left 
in cold and misery all night, writhing with tor- 
ture, — of bodies stripped by prowlers, perhaps 
murderers, — and of frenzied men, the darlings of 
their friends, dying, twoj and even several days 
after the battle, of famine ! The field of Waterloo 



4 REMARKS ON WAR. 

was not completely cleared of its dead and dying 
till nearly a week ! Surely large companies of men 
should be organised for the sole purpose of assist- 
ing and clearing away the field after battle. They 
should be steady men, not lightly admitted, nor 
unpossessed of some knowledge of surgery, and 
they should be attached to the surgeon's staff. 
Both sides would respect them for their office, and 
keep them sacred from violence. Their duties 
would be too painful and useful to get them dis- 
respected for not joining in the fight — and pos- 
sibly, before long, they would help to do away 
their own necessity, by detailing what they beheld. 
Is that the reason why there is no such establish- 
ment ? The question is asked, not in bitterness, 
but to suggest a self-interrogation to the instincts 
of war. 

I have not thought proper to put notes to the 
poem, detailing the horrors which I have touched 
upon ; nor even to quote my authorities, which 
are unfortunately too numerous, and contain worse 
horrors still. They are furnished by almost every 
history of a campaign, in all quarters of the world. 



REMARKS ON WAR. O 

Circumstances so painful, in a first attempt to 
render them public for their own sakes, would, 
I thought, even meet with less attention in prose 
than in verse, however less fitted they may ap- 
pear for it at first sight.* Verse, if it has any 
enthusiasm, at once demands and conciliates at- 
tention ; it proposes to say much in little ; and 
it associates with it the idea of something con- 
solatory, or otherwise sustaining. But there is 
one prose specimen of these details, which I will 
give, because it made so great an impression on 
me in my youth, that I never afterwards could 
help calling it to mind when war was spoken of; 
and as I had a good deal to say on that subject, 
having been a public journalist during one of the 
most interesting periods of modern history, and 
never having been blinded into an admiration 
of war by the dazzle of victory, the circum- 
stance may help to show how salutary a record 
of this kind may be, and what an impression 
the subject might be brought to make on society. 
The passage is in a note to one of Mr. South ey's 

* For reasons given in the Preface to the present edition, 
these notes and authorities are now added. 



O REMARKS ON WAR. 

poems, — the " Ode to Horror," — and is introduced 
by another frightful record, less horrible, because 
there is not such agony implied in it, nor is it 
alive. 

"I extract," says Mr. Southey, "the following 
picture of consummate horror from notes to a 
poem written in twelve-syllable verse, upon the 
campaign of 1794 and 1795 ; it was during the 
retreat to Deventer. ■ AV r e could not proceed a 
hundred yards without perceiving the dead bodies 
of men, women, children, and horses, in every 
direction. One scene made an impression upon 
my memory which time will never be able to 
efface. Xear another cart we perceived a stout- 
looking man and a beautiful young woman, with 
an infant, about seven months old, at the breast, 
all three frozen and dead. The mother had most 
certainly expired in the act of suckling her child ; 
as with one breast exposed she lay upon the 
drifted snow, the milk to all appearance in a 
stream drawn from the nipple by the babe, and 
instantly congealed. The infant seemed as if its 
lips had but just then been disengaged, and it 



REMARKS ON WAR. 7 

reposed its little head upon the mother bosom, 
with an overflow of milk, frozen as it trick-ed from 
the mouth. Their countenances were perfectly 
composed and fresh, resembling those of persons 
in a sound and tranquil slumber.' " 

" The following description," he continues, " of a 
field of battle is in the words of one who passed 
over the field of Jemappe, after Dumourier's 
victory : ' It was on the third day after the victory 
obtained by General Dumourier over the Austrian?, 
that I rode across the field of battle. The scene lies 
on a waste common, rendered then more dreary 
by the desertion of the miserable hovels before 
occupied by peasants. Everything that resembled 
a human habitation was desolated, and for the 
most part they had been burnt or pulled down, 
to prevent their affording shelter to the posts of 
the contending armies. The ground was ploughed 
up by the wheels of the artillery and waggons ; 
everything like herbage was trodden into mire ; 
broken carriages, arms, accoutrements, dead horses 
and men, were strewed over the heath. This teas 
the third day after the battle : it was the beginning 



8 



REMARKS ON WAR. 



of November, and for three days a bleak wind 
and heavy rain had continued incessantly. There 
were still remaining alive several hundreds of 
horses, and of the human victims of that dreadful 
fight. I can speak with certainty of having seen 
more than four hundred men still living, un- 
sheltered, without food, and without any human 
assistance, most of them confined to the spot 
where they had fallen by broken limbs. The two 
armies had proceeded, and abandoned these 
miserable wretches to their fate. Some of the 
dead persons appeared to have expired in the act 
of embracing each other. Two young French 
officers, who were brothers, had crawled under 
the side of a dead horse, where they had contrived 
a kind of shelter by means of a cloak : they were 
both mortally wounded, and groaning for each 
other. One very fine young man had just strength 
enough to drag himself out of a hollow partly 
filled with water, and was laid upon a little hillock, 
groaning with agony ; a grape-shot had err 

ACROSS THE UPPER PART OF HIS BELLY, AND HE 
WAS KEEPING LN HIS BOWELS WITH A HANDKER- 
CHIEF and hat. He begged of me to end his 



REMARKS ON WAR. V 

misery ! He complained of dreadful thirst. I filled 
him the hat of a dead soldier with water, which 
he nearly drank off at once, and left him to that 
end of his wretchedness which could not be far 
distant.' " 

" I hope," concludes Mr. Southey, " I have 
always felt and expressed an honest and Christian 
abhorrence of wars, and of the systems that pro- 
duce them; but my ideas of their immediate 
horrors fell infinitely short of this authentic 
picture." 

Mr. Southey, in his subsequent lives of con- 
querors, and his other writings, will hardly be 
thought to have acted up to this " abhorrence of 
wars, and of the systems that produce them." Nor 
is he to be blamed for qualifying his view of the 
subject, equally blameless (surely) as they are to 
be held who have retained their old views, espe- 
cially by him who helped to impress them. His 
friend, Mr. Wordsworth, in the vivacity of his 
admonitions to hasty complaints of evil, has 
gone so far as to say that " Carnage is Grod's 



10 REMARKS ON WAR. 

daughter," and thereby subjected himself to the 
scoffs of a late noble wit. He is addressing the 
Deity himself : — 

" But thy most dreaded instrument, 
In working out a pure intent, 
Is man, arrayed for mutual slaughter : 
Yea, Carnage is thy daughter." 

Mr. Wordsworth is a fine poet and a philosophical 
thinker, in spite of his having here paid a tremen- 
dous compliment to a rhyme (for unquestionably 
the word "slaughter" provoked him into that 
imperative " Yea," and its subsequent venturous 
affiliation) ; but the judgment, to say no more of 
it, is rash. Whatever the Divine Being intends 
by his permission or use of evil, it becomes us to 
think the best of it ; but not to affirm the appro- 
priation of the particulars to Him under their worst 
appellation, seeing that He has implanted in us 
a horror of them, and a wish to do them away. 
What it is right in Him to do, is one thing; 
what it is proper in us to affirm that He actually 
does, is another. And, above all, it is idle to 
affirm what He intends to do for ever, and to have 
us eternally venerate and abstain from questioning 



REMARKS ON WAR. 1 1 

an evil. All good and evil, and vice and virtue 
themselves, might become confounded in the human 
mind by a like daring; and humanity sit down 
under every buffet of misfortune, without attempt- 
ing to resist it: which, fortunately, is impossible. 
Plato cut this knotty point better, by regarding 
evil as a thing senseless and unmalignant (indeed, 
no philosopher regards anything as malignant, or 
malignant for malignity's sake) ; out of which, or 
notwithstanding it, good is worked, and to be 
worked, perhaps finally to the abolition of evil. 
But whether this consummation be possible or not, 
and even if the dark horrors of evil be necessary 
towards the enjoyment of the light of good, still the 
horror must be maintained, where the object is 
really horrible; otherwise, we but the more idly 
resist the contrast, if necessary — and, what is 
worse, endanger the chance of melioration, if 
possible. 

Did war appear to me an inevitable evil, I 
should be one of the last men to show it in any 
other than its holiday clothes. I can appeal to 
writings before the public, to testify whether I am 



12 REMARKS ON WAR. 

in the habit of making the worst of anything, or of 
not making it yield its utmost amount of good. 
My inclinations, as well as my reason, lie all that 
way. I am a passionate and grateful lover of all 
the beauties of the universe, moral and material ; 
and the chief business of my life is to endeavour 
to give others the like fortunate affection. But, 
on the same principle, I feel it my duty to look 
evil in the face, in order to discover if it be capable 
of amendment ; and I do not see why the miseries 
of war are to be spared this interrogation, simply 
because they are frightful and enormous. Men 
get rid of smaller evils which lie in their way — 
nay, of great ones ; and there appears to be no 
reason why they should not get rid of the greatest, 
if they will but have the courage. We have 
abolished inquisitions and the rack, burnings for 
religion, burnings for witchcraft, hangings for for- 
gery (a great triumph in a commercial country), 
much of the punishment of death in some coun- 
tries, all of it in others. Why not abolish war ? 
Mr. Wordsworth writes no odes to tell us that the 
Inquisition was God's daughter ; though Lope de 
Vega, who was one of its officers, might have done 



REMARKS ON WAR. 13 

so — and Mr. "Wordsworth too, had he lived under 
its dispensation. Lope de Vega, like Mr. "Words- 
worth and Mr. Sonthey, was a good man, as well 
as a celebrated poet : and we will concede to his 
memory what the English poets will, perhaps, not 
be equally disposed to grant (for they are severe 
on the Komish faith), that even the Inquisition, 
like War, might possibly have had some utility in 
its evil, were it no other than a hastening of 
Christianity by its startling contradictions of it. 
Yet it has gone. The Inquisition, as "War may be 
hereafter, is no more. Daughter if it was of the 
Supreme Good, it was no immortal daughter. "Why 
should " Carnage" be, — especially as God has put 
it in our heads to get rid of it ? 

I am aware of what may be said on these occa- 
sions, to "puzzle the will;" and I concede, of 
course, that mankind may entertain false views 
of their power to change anything for the better. 
I concede, that all change may be only in ap- 
pearance, and not make any real difference in the 
general amount of good and evil; that evil, to a 
certain invariable amount, may be necessary to the 



14 REMARKS ON WAR. 

amount of good (the overbalance of which, with a 
most hearty and loving sincerity, I ever acknow- 
ledge) ; and finally, that all which the wisest of 
men could utter on any such subject might 
possibly be nothing but a jargon, — the witless and 
puny voice of what we take to be a mighty orb, 
but which, after all, is only a particle in the 
starry dust of the universe. 

On the other hand, all this may be something 
very different from what vre take it to be, setting 
aside even the opinions which consider mind as 
everything, and time and space themselves as 
only modifications of it, or breathing-room in 
which it exists, weaving the thoughts which it calls 
life, death, and materiality. 

But, be his metaphysical opinions what they 
may, who but some fantastic individual, or ultra- 
contemplative scholar, ever thinks of subjecting 
to them his practical notions of bettering his 
condition! And how soon is it likely that men 
will leave off endeavouring to secure themselves 
against the uneasier chances of vicissitude, even 



REMARKS ON WAR. 15 

if Providence ordains them to do so for no other 
end than the preservation of vicissitude itself, 
and not in order to help them out of the husks 
and thorns of action into the flowers of it, and 
into the air of heaven ? Certain it is, at all 
events, that the human being is incited to increase 
his amount of good : and that when he is en- 
deavouring to do so, he is at least not f\unlling 
the worst part of his necessity. Nobody tells 
us, when we attempt to put out a fire and to save 
the lives of our neighbours, that Conflagration 
is God's daughter, or Murder Grod's daughter. 
On the contrary, these are things which Chris- 
tendom is taught to think ill of, and to wish 
to put down ; and therefore we should put 
down war, which is murder and conflagration by 
millions. 

To those who tell us that nations would grow 
cowardly and effeminate without war, we answer, 
" Try a reasonable condition of peace first, and 
then prove it. Try a state of things which man- 
kind have never yet attained, because they had 
no press, and no universal comparison of notes ; 



16 REMARKS ON WAR. 

and consider, in the meanwhile, whether so 
cheerful, and intelligent, and just a state, seeing 
fair play between body and mind, and educated 
into habits of activity, would be likely to unedu- 
cate itself into what was neither respected nor 
customary. Prove, in the meanwhile, that nations 
are cowardly and effeminate, that have been long 
unaccustomed to war ; that the South Americans 
are so ; or that all our robust countrymen, who do 
not " go for soldiers," are timid agriculturists and 
manufacturers, with not a quoit to throw on the 
green, or a saucy word to give to an insult. 
Moral courage is in self-respect and the sense 
of duty; physical courage is a matter of health 
or organisation. Are these predispositions likely 
to fail in a community of instructed freemen ? 
Doubters of advancement are always arguing from 
a limited past to an unlimited future ; that is to 
say, from a past of which they know but a point, 
to a future of which they know nothing. They 
stand on the bridge "between two eternities," 
seeing a little bit of it behind them, and nothing 
at all of what is before, and uttering those 
words unfit for mortal tongue, " man ever was," 






REMARKS ON WAR. 17 

and " man ever will be." They might as well 
say what is beyond the stars. It appears to be 
a part of the necessity of things, from what 
we see of the improvements they make, that all 
human improvement should proceed by the co- 
operation of human means. But what blinker 
into the night of next week, — what luckless pro- 
phet of the impossibilities of steam-boats and 
steam-carriages, — shall presume to say how far 
those improvements are to extend ? Let no man 
faint in the co-operation with which God has 
honoured him. 

As to those superabundances of population 
which wars and other evils are supposed to be 
necessary in order to keep down, there are ques- 
tions which have a right to be put, long before 
any such necessity is assumed : and till those 
questions be answered, and the experiments de- 
pendent upon them tried, the interrogators have 
a right to assume that no such necessity exists. 
I do not enter upon them — for I am not bound to 
do so ; but I have touched upon them in the 
poem ; and the "too rich," and other disingenuous 
c 



18 



REMARKS ON WAR. 



half-reasoners, know well what they are. All 
passionate remedies for evil are themselves evil, 
and tend to re-produce what they remedy. It is 
high time for the world to show that it has come 
to man's estate, and can put down what is wrong 
without violence. Should the wrong still return, 
we should have a right to say with the apostle, 
" Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" for 
meanwhile we should " not have done evil that 
good may come." That "good" may come! nay. 
that evil may be perpetuated; for what good, su- 
perior to the alternatives denounced, is achieved 
by this eternal round of war and its causes ? Let 
us do good in a good and kind manner, and trust 
to the co-operation of Providence for the result. 
It seems the only real way of attainiDg to the 
very best of which our earth is capable ; and 
at the very worst, necessity, like the waters, 
will find its level, and the equity of things be 
justified. 

I firmly believe that war, or the sending thou- 
sands of our fellow-creatures to cut one another 
to bits, often for what they have no concern in, 



REMARKS ON WAR. 19 

nor understand, will one day be reckoned far 
more absurd than if people were to settle an 
argument over the dinner-table with their knives, 
— a logic, indeed, which was once fashionable in 
some places during the "good old times." The 
world has seen the absurdity of that practice : 
why should it not come to years of discretion, 
with respect to violence on a larger scale ? The 
other day, our own country and the United States 
agreed to refer a point in dispute to the arbitra- 
tion of a king of Holland ; a compliment (if 
we are to believe the newspapers) of which his 
Majesty was justly proud. He struck a medal 
on the strength of it, which history will show 
as a set-off against his less creditable attempts 
to force his opinions upon the Belgians. Why 
should not every national dispute be referred, in 
like manner, to a third party? There is reason 
to suppose, that the judgment would stand a good 
chance of being impartial; and it would benefit 
the character of the judge, and dispose him to 
receive judgments of the same kind ; till at length 
the custom would prevail, like any other custom ; 
and men be astonished at the custom that pre- 
c2 



20 REMARKS ON WAR. 

ceded it. In private life, none but school-boys 
and the vulgar settle disputes by blows ; even 
duelling is losing its dignity. 

Two nations, or most likely two governments, 
have a dispute ; they reason the point backwards 
and forwards ; they cannot determine it ; perhaps 
they do not wish to determine it; so, like two carmen 
in the street, they fight it out ; first, however, 
dressing themselves up to look fine, and pluming 
themselves on their absurdity ; just as if the two 
carmen were to go and put on their Sunday 
clothes, and stick a feather in their hat besides, 
in order to be as dignified and fantastic as possible. 
They then " go at it," and cover themselves with 
mud, blood, and glory. Can anything be more 
ridiculous ? Yet, apart from the habit of thinking 
otherwise, and being drummed into the notion by 
the very toys of infancy, the similitude is not one 
atom too ludicrous ; no, nor a thousandth part 
enough so. I am aware that a sarcasm is but a 
sarcasm, and need not imply any argument — never 
includes all; — but it acquires a more respectable 
character when so much is done to keep it out 



REMARKS ON WAR. 21 

of sight, — when so many questions are begged 
against it by "pride, pomp, and circumstance," 
and allegations of necessity. Similar allegations 
may be, and are brought forward, by other nations 
of the world, in behalf of customs which we, for 
our parts, think very ridiculous, and do our utmost 
to put down ; never referring them, as we refer 
our own, to the mysterious ordinations of Provi- 
dence ; or, if we do, never hesitating to suppose, 
that Providence, in moving us to interfere, is 
varying its ordinations. Now, all that I would ask 
of the advocates of war, is to apply the possible 
justice of this supposition to their own case, 
for the purpose of thoroughly investigating the 
question. 

I will conclude these remarks with quotations 
from three writers of the present day, who may 
be fairly taken to represent the three distinct 
classes of the leaders of knowledge, and who 
will show what is thought of the feasibility of 
putting an end to war, — the Utilitarian, or those 
who are all for the tangible and material — the 
Metaphysical, or those who recognise, in addition, 



22 REMARKS ON WAR. 

the spiritual and imaginative wants of mankind — 
and lastly (in no offensive sense), the Men of the 
World, whose opinion will have the greatest 
weight of all with the incredulous, and whose 
speaker is a soldier to boot, and a man who 
evidently sees fair play to all the weaknesses as 
well as strengths of our nature. 

The first quotation is from the venerable Mr. 
Bentham, a man who certainly lost sight of no 
existing or possible phase of society, such as the 
ordinary disputants on this subject contemplate. 
I venture to think him not thoroughly philosophi- 
cal on the point, especially in what he says in 
reproach of men educated to think differently 
from himself. But the passage will show the 
growth of opinion in a practical and highly in- 
fluential quarter. 

" Nothing can be worse," says Mr. Bentham, 
- than the general feeling on the subject of war. 
The Church, the State, the ruling few, the sub- 
ject many, all seem to have combined, in order 
to patronise vice and crime in their very widest 



REMARKS ON WAR. 23 

sphere of evil. Dress a man in particular gar- 
ments, call Mm by a particular name, and he 
shall have authority, on divers occasions, to com- 
mit every species of offence, to pillage, to murder, 
to destroy human felicity, and, for so doing, he 
shall be rewarded. 

" Of all that is pernicious in admiration, the 
admiration of heroes is the most pernicious ; and 
how delusion should have made us admire what 
virtue should teach us to hate and loathe, is among 
the saddest evidences of human weakness and folly. 
The crimes of heroes seem lost in the vastness of 
the field they occupy. A lively idea of the mis- 
chief they do, of the misery they create, seldom 
penetrates the mind, through the delusions with 
which thoughtlessness and falsehood have sur- 
rounded their names and deeds. Is it that the 
magnitude of the evil is too gigantic for entrance ? 
We read of twenty thousand men killed in a 
battle, with no other feeling than that ' it was 
a glorious victory.' Twenty thousand, or ten 
thousand, what reck we of their sufferings ? The 
hosts who perished are evidence of the complete- 



24 REMARKS ON WAR. 

ness of the triumph; and the completeness of 
the triumph is the measure of merit, and the 
glory of the conqueror. Our schoolmasters, and 
the immoral books they so often put into our 
hands, have inspired us with an affection for 
heroes ; and the hero is more heroic in proportion 
to the numbers of the slain — add a cipher, not one 
iota is added to our disapprobation. Pour or two 
figures give us no more sentiment of pain than 
one figure, while they add marvellously to the 
grandeur and splendour of the victor. Let us 
draw forth one individual from those thousands. 
or tens of thousands — his leg has been shivered 
by one ball, his jaw broken by another — he is 
bathed in his own blood, and that of his fellows, 
— yet he lives, tortured by thirst, fainting, 
famishing. He is but one of the twenty thousand 
— one of the actors and sufferers in the scene of 
the hero's glory — and of the twenty thousand 
there is scarcely one whose suffering or death will 
not be the centre of a circle of misery. Look 
again, admirers of that hero ! Is not this wretched- 
ness ? Because it is repeated ten, ten hundred, 
ten thousand times, is not this wretchedness ? 



REMARKS ON WAR. 25 

" The period will assuredly arrive, when better 
instructed generations will require all the evidence 
of history to credit, that, in times deeming them- 
selves enlightened, human beings should have 
been honoured with public approval, in the very 
proportion of the misery they caused, and the 
mischiefs they perpetrated. They will call upon 
all the testimony which incredulity can require, 
to persuade them that, in passed ages, men there 
were — men, too, deemed worthy of popular re- 
compence — who, for some small pecuniary retri- 
bution, hired themselves out to do any deeds of 
pillage, devastation, and murder, which might be 
demanded of them. And, still more will it shock 
their sensibilities to learn, that such men, such 
men-destroyers, were marked out as the eminent 
and the illustrious — as the worthy of laurels and 
monuments — of eloquence and poetry. In that 
better and happier epoch, the wise and the good 
will be busied in hurling into oblivion, or dragging 
forth for exposure to universal ignominy and ob- 
loquy, many of the heads we deem heroic ; while 
the true fame and the perdurable glories will 



26 REMARKS ON WAR. 

be gathered around the creators and diffusers of 
happiness .' ' — Deontology. 

Our second quotation is from one of the 
subtilest and most universal thinkers now living — 
Thomas Carlyle — chiefly known to the public 
as a German scholar and the friend of Goethe, 
but deeply respected by other leading intellects 
of the day, as a man who sees into the utmost 
recognised possibilities of knowledge. See what 
he thinks of war, and of the possibility of putting 
an end to it. We forget whether we got the 
extract from the Edinburgh or the Foreign Quar- 
terly Review, having made it sometime back and 
mislaid the reference ; and we take a liberty with 
him in mentioning his name as the writer, for which 
his zeal in the cause of mankind will pardon us.* 

" The better minds of all countries," observes 
Mr. Carlyle, " begin to understand each other, 

* Since this paragraph was written, I need not say what a 
name Mr. Carlyle has procured himself by his writings on the 
" French Revolution,'' &c. 



REMARKS ON WAR. 27 

and, which follows naturally, to love each other 
and help each other, by whom ultimately all 
countries in all their proceedings are governed. 

" Late in man's history, yet clearly, at length, 
it becomes manifest to the dullest, that mind is 
stronger than matter — that mind is the creator 
and shaper of matter — that not brute force, but 
only persuasion and faith, is the King of this 
world. The true poet, who is but an inspired 
thinker, is still an Orpheus whose lyre tames 
the savage beasts, and evokes the dead rocks 
to fashion themselves into palaces and stately 
inhabited cities. It has been said, and may be 
repeated, that literature is fast becoming all in 
all to us — our Church, our Senate, our whole 
social constitution. The true Pope of Christen- 
dom is not that feeble old man in Eome, nor is 
its autocrat the Napoleon, the Nicholas, with its 
half million even of obedient bayonets ; such 
autocrat is himself but a more cunningly-devised 
bayonet and military engine in the hands of a 
mightier than he. The true autocrat, or Pope, 
is that man, the real or seeming wisest of the last 



28 REMARKS ON WAR. 

age ; crowned after death ; who finds his hierarchy 
of gifted authors, his clergy of assiduous jour- 
nalists : whose decretals, written, not on parch- 
ment, but on the living souls of men, it were 
an inversion of the laws of nature to disobey. 
In these times of ours, all intellect has fused 
itself into literature ; literature — printed thought, 
is the molten sea and wonder-bearing chaos, 
in which mind after mind casts forth its opinion, 
its feeling, to be molten into the general mass, 
and to be worked there ; interest after interest 
is engulfed in it, or embarked in it; higher, 
higher it rises round all the edifices of existence : 
they must all be molten into it, and anew 
bodied forth from it, or stand unconsumed among 
its fiery surges. Woe to him whose edifice is 
not built of true asbest, and on the everlasting 
rock, but on the false sand and the drift-wood of 
accident, and the paper and parchment of anti- 
quated habit ! For the power or powers exist 
not on our earth that can say to that sea — roll 
back, or bid its proud waves be still. 

" What form so omnipotent an element will 



REMARKS ON WAR. 29 

assume — how long it will welter to and fro as 
a wild democracy, a wilder anarchy — what con- 
stitution and organisation it will fashion for itself, 
and for what depends on it in the depths of 
time, is a subject for prophetic conjecture, wherein 
brightest hope is not unmingled with fearful 
apprehensions and awe at the boundless unknown. 
The more cheering is this one thing, which we do 
see and know — that its tendency is to a universal 
European commonweal; that the wisest in all 
nations will communicate and co-operate ; whereby 
Europe will again have its true Sacred College 
and Council of Amphictyons ; wars will become 
rarer, less inhuman ; and in the course of centuries, 
such delirious ferocity in nations, as in individuals 
it already is, may be proscribed and become obso- 
lete for ever." 

My last and not least conclusive extract (for 
it shows the actual hold which these speculations 
have taken of the minds of practical men — of men 
out in the world, and even of soldiers,) is from a 
book popular among all classes of readers — the 
Bubbles from the Brunnens of Xassau, written by 



30 REMARKS ON WAR. 

Major Sir Francis Head. What he says of one 
country's educating another, by the natural pro- 
gress of books and opinion, and of the effect 
which this is likely to have upon governments 
even as remote and unwilling as Russia, is par- 
ticularly worthy of attention. 

The author is speaking of some bathers at whom 
he had been looking, and of a Russian Prince, 
who lets us into some curious information re- 
specting the leading-strings in which grown gen- 
tlemen are kept by despotism : — 

" For more than half an hour I had been indo- 
lently watching this amphibious scene, when the 
landlord entering my room said, that the Russian 

Prince, Gr n, wished to speak to me on some 

business ; and the information was scarcely com- 
municated, when I perceived his Highness stand- 
ing at the threshold of my door. With the atten- 
tion due to his rank, I instantly begged he would 
do me the honour to walk in ; and, after we had 
sufficiently bowed to each other, and that I had 
prevailed on my guest to sit down, I gravely n - 



REMARKS ON WAR. 31 

quested him, as I stood before him, to be so good 
as to state in what way I could have the good for- 
tune to render him any service. The Prince very 
briefly replied, that he had called upon me, consider- 
ing that I was the person in the hotel best capable 
(he politely inclined his head) of informing him by 
what route it would be most advisable for him to pro- 
ceed to London, it being his wish to visit my country. 

" In order at once to solve this very simple pro- 
blem, I silently unfolded and spread out upon the 
table my map of Europe ; and each of us, as we 
leant over it, placing a forefinger on or near 
Wiesbaden (our eyes being fixed upon Dover), 
we remained in this reflecting attitude for some 
seconds, until the Prince's finger first solemnly 
began to trace its route. In doing this, I observed 
that his Highness 's hand kept swerving far into 
the Netherlands, so, gently pulling it by the thumb 
towards Paris, I used as much force as I thought 
decorous to induce it to advance in a straight line ; 
however, finding my efforts ineffectual, I ventured, 
with respectful astonishment, to ask, ' Why travel 
by so uninteresting a route ? ' 



32 REMARKS ON WAR. 

" The Prince at once acknowledged that the 
route I had recommended would, by visiting Paris, 
afford him the greatest pleasure ; but he frankly 
told me that no Eussian, not even a personage 
of his rank, could enter that capital, without 
first obtaining a written permission from the 
Emperor. 

" These words were no sooner uttered, than I 
felt my fluent civility suddenly begin to coagu- 
late ; the attention I paid my guest became 
forced and unnatural. I was no longer at my 
ease ; and though I bowed, strained, and endea- 
voured to be, if possible, more respectful than 
ever, yet I really could hardly prevent my lips 
from muttering aloud, that I had sooner die a 
homely English peasant than live to be a Eussian 
prince! — in short, his Highness's words acted 
upon my mind like thunder upon beer. And. 
moreover, I could almost have sworn that I was 
an old lean wolf, contemptuously observing a bald 
ring rubbed by the collar, from the neck of a 
sleek, well-fed mastiff dog ; however, recovering 
myself, I managed to give as much information 



REMARKS ON WAT?. 33 

as it was in my humble power to afford ; and 
my noble guest then taking his departure, I 
returned to my open window, to give vent in 
solitude (as I gazed upon the horse bath) to my 
own reflection upon the subject. 

" Although the petty rule of my life has been 
never to trouble myself about what the world 
calls l politics ' — (a fine word, by the by, much 
easier expressed than understood) — yet, I must 
own, I am always happy when I see a nation 
enjoying itself, and melancholy when I observe 
any large body of people suffering pain or im- 
prisonment. But, of all sorts of imprisonment, 
that of the mind is, to my taste, the most cruel ; 
and, therefore, when I consider over what immense 
dominions the Emperor of Russia presides, and 
how he governs, I cannot help sympathising most 
sincerely with those innocent sufferers, who have 
the misfortune to be born his subjects; for if a 
Russian prince be not freely permitted to go to 
Paris, in what a melancholy state of slavery and 
debasement must exist the minds of what we 
call the lower classes ? 



34 REMARKS ON WAR. 

" As a sovereign remedy for this lamentable 
political disorder, many very sensible people in 
England prescribe, I know, that we onght to 
have recourse to arms. I must confess, however, 
it seems to me that one of the greatest political 
errors England could commit would be to declare, 
or to join in declaring, war with Eussia ; in short, 
that an appeal to brute force would, at this 
moment, be at once most unscientifically to stop 
an immense moral engine, which, if left to its 
work, is quite powerful enough, without bloodshed, 
to gain for humanity, at no expense at all, its 
object. The individual who is, I conceive, to over- 
throw the Emperor of Eussia — who is to direct his 
own legions against himself— who is to do what 
Napoleon had at the head of his great army failed 
to effect, is the little child, who, lighted by the 
single wick of a small lamp, sits at this moment 
perched above the great steam press of the 
1 Penny Magazine,' feeding it, from morning till 
night, with blank papers, which, at almost every 
pulsation of the engine, comes out stamped on 
both sides with engravings, and with pages of 
plain, useful, harmless knowledge, which, by 






REMARKS ON WAR. 35 

making the lower orders acquainted with foreign 
lands, foreign productions, various states of society, 
&c, tend practically to inculcate ' Grlory to God 
in the highest, and on earth peace — good will 
towards men.' It has already been stated, that 
what proceeds from this press is now greedily 
devoured by the people of Europe; indeed, even 
at Berlin, we know it can hardly be reprinted fast 
enough. 

" This child, then, — l this sweet little cherub 
that sits up aloft,' — is the only army that an en- 
lightened country like ours should, I humbly think, 
deign to oppose to one who reigns in darkness — 
who trembles at daylight, and whose throne rests 
upon ignorance and despotism. Compare this mild, 
peaceful, intellectual policy, with the dreadful, 
savage alternative of going to war, and the differ- 
ence must surely be evident to everyone. In the 
former case, we calmly enjoy, first of all, the pleas- 
ing reflection, that our country is generously im- 
parting to the nations of Europe the blessing she 
is tranquilly deriving from the purification of civi- 
lisation to her own mind; — far from wishing to 
d2 



36 



REMARKS ON WAR. 



exterminate, we are gradually illuminating the 
Russian peasant, we are mildly throwing a gleam 
of light upon the fetters of the Eussian prince ; 
and surely every well-disposed person must see, 
that if we will only have patience, the result of 
this noble, temperate conduct must produce all 
that reasonable beings can desire." — Bubbles from 
the Brunnens of Nassau, p. 164. 

By the " Penny Magazine," our author means, 
of course, not only that excellent publication, but 
all cheaply-diffused knowledge — all the tranquil and 
enlightening deeds of " Captain Pen" in general — 
of whom it is pleasant to see the gallant Major so 
useful a servant, the more so from his sympathies 
with rank and the aristocracy. But "Pen" will 
make it a matter of necessity, by-and-by, for all 
ranks to agree with him, in vindication of their 
own wit and common sense ; and when once this 
necessity is felt, and fastidiousness shall find out 
that it will be considered " absurd" to lag behind 
in the career of knowledge and the common good, 
the cause of the world is secure. 



REMARKS ON WAR. 37 

May princes and people alike find it out by the 
kindliest means, and without further violence. May 
they discover that no one set of human beings, 
perhaps no single individual, can be thoroughly 
secure and content, or enabled to work out his 
case with equal reasonableness, till all are so, — a 
subject for reflection, which contains, we hope, the 
beneficent reason why all are restless. The solu- 
tion of the problem is co-operation — the means of 
solving it is the Press". If the Greeks had had a 
press, we should probably have heard nothing of 
the inconsiderate question, which demands, why 
they, with all their philosophy, did not alter the 
world ? They had not the means. They could not 
command a general hearing. Neither had Chris- 
tianity come up, to make men think of one another's 
wants, as well as of their own accomplishments. 
Modern times possess those means, and inherit 
that divine incitement. May every man exert him- 
self accordingly, and show himself a worthy inha- 
bitant of this beautiful and most capable world ! 



CAPTAIN SWORD 



AND 



CAPTAIN PEN. 



i. 

HOW CAPTAIN SWORD MARCHED TO WAR. 

Captain Sword got up one day, 
Over the hills to march away, 
Over the hills and through the towns; 
They heard him coming across the downs, 
Stepping in music and thunder sweet, 
Which his drums sent before him into the street, 
And lo ! 'twas a beautiful sight in the sun ; 
For first came his foot, all marching like one, 



40 CAPTAIN SWORD 

With tranquil faces, and bristling steel, 
And the flag full of honour as though it could 

feel, 
And the officers gentle, the sword that hold 
'Gainst the shoulder heavy with trembling 

gold, 
And the massy tread, that in passing is heard, 
Though the drums and the music say never a 

word. 

And then came his horse, a clustering sound 
Of shapely potency, forward bound, 
Glossy black steeds, and riders tall, 
Rank after rank, each looking like all, 
Midst moving repose and a threatening charm, 
With mortal sharpness at each right arm, 
And hues that painters and ladies love, 
And ever the small flag blush'd above. 

And ever and anon the kettle-drums beat 
Hasty power midst order meet ; 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 41 

And ever and anon the drums and fifes 
Came like motion's voice, and life's ; 
Or into the golden grandeurs fell 
Of deeper instruments, mingling well, 
Burdens of beauty for winds to bear ; 
And the cymbals kiss'd in the shining air, 
And the trumpets their visible voices rear'd, 
Each looking forth with its tapestried beard, 
Bidding the heavens and earth make way 
For Captain Sword and his battle-array. 

He, nevertheless, rode indifferent-eyed, 
As if pomp were a toy to his manly pride, 
Whilst the ladies loved him the more for his 

scorn, 
And thought him the noblest man ever was born, 
And tears came into the bravest eyes, 
And hearts swell'd after him double their size, 
And all that was weak, and all that was strong, 
Seem'd to think wrong's self in him could not 
be wrong ; 



42 CAPTAIN SWORD AND CAPTAIN PEN. 

Such love, though with bosom about to be gored, 
Did sympathy get for brave Captain Sword. 

So, half that night, as he stopp'd in the town, 
'Twas all one dance going merrily down, 
With lights in windows and love in eyes, 
And a constant feeling of sweet surprise ; 
But all the next morning 'twas tears and sighs; 
For the sound of his drums grew less and less, 
Walking like carelessness off from distress ; 
And Captain Sword went whistling gay, 
" Over the hills and far away." 



II. 



HOW CAPTAIN SWORD WON A GREAT VICTORY. 

Through fair and through foul went Captain 

Sword, 
Pacer of highway and piercer of ford, 
Steady of face in rain or sun, 
He and his merry men, all as one ; 
Till they came to a place, where in battle-array 
Stood thousands of faces, firm as they, 
Waiting to see which could best maintain 
Bloody argument, lords of pain; 
And down the throats of their fellow-men 
Thrust the draught never drunk again. 

It was a spot of rural peace, 
Ripening with the year's increase, 



44 CAPTAIN SWORD 

And singing in the sun with birds, 

Like a maiden with happy words — 

With happy words which she scarcely hears 

In her own contented ears, 

Such abundance feeleth she 

Of all comfort carelessly, 

Throwing round her, as she goes, 

Sweet half-thoughts on lily and rose, 

Nor guesseth what will soon arouse 

All ears — that murder 's in the house ; 

And that, in some strange wrong of brain, 

Her father hath her mother slain. 

Steady ! steady ! The masses of men 
Wheel, and fall in, and wheel again, 
Softly as circles drawn with pen. 

Then a gaze there was, and valour, and fear. 
And the jest that died in the jester's ear, 
And preparation, noble to see, 
Of all-accepting mortality ; 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 45 

Tranquil Necessity gracing Force; 

And the trumpets danced with the stirring horse; 

And lordly voices, here and there, 

Call'd to war through the gentle air; 

When suddenly, with its voice of doom, 

Spoke the cannon 'twixt glare and gloom, 

Making wider the dreadful room : 

On the faces of nations round 

Fell the shadow of that sound. 

Death for death ! The storm begins ; 
Rush the drums in a torrent of dins ; 
Crash the muskets, gash the swords; 
Shoes grow red in a thousand fords; 
Now for the flint, and the cartridge bite ; 
Darkly gathers the breath of the fight, 
Salt to the palate, and stinging to sight; 
Muskets are pointed they scarce know where ; 
No matter : Murder is cluttering- there. 
Reel the hollows : close up ! close up ! 
Death feeds thick, and his food is his cup. 



46 CAPTAIN SWORD 

Down go bodies, snap burst eyes; 
Trod on the ground are tender cries; 
Brains are dash'd against plashing ears ; 
Hah! no time has battle for tears; 
Cursing helps better — cursing, that goes 
Slipping through friends' blood, athirst for foes'. 
What have soldiers with tears to do? — 
We, who this mad-house must now go through, 
This twenty-fold Bedlam, let loose with knives — 
To murder, and stab, and grow liquid with lives — 
Gasping, staring, treading red mud, 
Till the drunkenness' self makes us stead v of 
blood? 1 



l Gasping, staring, treading red mud, 
Till the drunkenness' self makes us steady of blood. 

" In action man is quite another being. * * The soul 
rises above its wonted serenity, into a kind of frenzied 
apathy to the scene before you — a heroism bordering on 
ferocity ; the nerves become tight and contracted, the 
eye full and open, moving quickly in its socket, with 
almost maniac wildness; the head is in constant motion, 
the nostrils extended wide, and the mouth apparently 
gasping:' 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 47 

[Oh ! shrink not thou, reader ! Thy part's in 

it, too; 
Has not thy praise made the thing they go 

through, 
Shocking to read of, but noble to do?] 

No time to be "breather of thoughtful breath" 
Has the giver and taker of dreadful death. 

" In many places the dead lay four deep upon each 
other, marking the spot some British square had occupied, 
when exposed for hours to the murderous fire of a French 
battery. Outside, lancer and cuirassier were scattered 
thickly on the earth. Madly attempting to force the 
bayonets of the British, they had fallen in the bootless 
essay by the musketry of the inner files. Further on, 
you traced the spot where the cavalry of France and 
England had encountered. Chasseur and hussar were 
intermingled, and the heavy Norman horse of the imperial 
guard were interspersed with the grey chargers which had 
carried Albin's chivalry. There the Highlander and 
tirailleur lay, side by side, together ; and the heavy 
dragoon, with ' green Erin's' badge upon his helmet, was 
grasped in death by the Polish lancer. 

" On the summit of the ridge, the ground lay cum- 
bered with dead, and trodden, fetlock deep, in mud and 
gore" — Booth's Accounts of Waterloo, p. xlii. 



48 CAPTAIN SWORD 

See where comes the horse-tempest again, 
Visible earthquake, bloody of mane ! 
Part are upon us, with edges of pain ; 
Part burst, riderless, over the plain, 
Crashing their spurs, and twice slaying the 

slain. 2 
See, by the living God ! see those foot 
Charging down hill — hot, hurried, and mute ! 

2 See where comes the horse-tempest again, 
Visible earthquake, bloody of mane! 
Part are upon us, with edges of pain ; 
Part burst, riderless, over the plain, 
Crashing their spurs, arid twice slaying the slain. 
Campbell, the poet, during the first wars of the revo- 
lution, saw the French army, under Moreau, enter 
Hohenlinden after defeating the Austrians. The cavalry 
were wiping their bloody swords on the manes of their 
horses. 

" Thousands of wounded horses were strewn over this 
scene of slaughter. Some lay quietly on the ground, 
cropping the grass within their reach ; some, with deep 
moaning s, expressed their sufferings; while others, 
maddened with pain, 

"Jerked out their armed heels at their dead masters. 
Killing them twice." — Booth's Waterloo. 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 49 

They loll their tongues out! Ah-hah! pell-mell! 

Horses roll in a human hell; 

Horse and man they climb one another — 

Which is the beast, and which is the brother? 3 

Mangling, stifling, stopping shrieks 

With the tread of torn-out cheeks, 

Drinking each other's bloody breath — 

Here's the fleshliest feast of Death. 

An odour, as of a slaughter-house, 

The distant raven's dark eye bows. 



'> 



3 Which is the beast, and which is the brother ? 

See any picture of such a melee, in paintings or en- 
gravings ; and consider it, not with the " eye of an artist," 
but with the feelings of a fellow-creature. 

The circumstance of " lolling the tongues out," during 
a charge of bayonets, on a hot and exhausting day, was 
told me in my youth, on the authority of a soldier who had 
served in Holland. 

4 An odour, as of a slaughter-house, 

The distant raven's dark eye bpws. 

" The smell which hung not only about the interior, 

but the exterior of the cottage, was shocking. Not that 

the dead had as yet begun to putrify ; for though some of 

them had lain for a couple of days exposed to the influence 



50 CAPTAIN SWORD 

Victory ! victory ! Man flies man ; 
Cannibal patience hath done what it can — 
Carved, and been carved, drunk the drinkers 

down, 
And now there is one that hath won the 

crown ; — 
One pale visage stands lord of the board — 
Joy to the trumpets of Captain Sword! 

His trumpets blow strength, his trumpets 
neigh, 
They and his horse, and waft him away ; 
They and his foot, with a tired proud flow, 
Tatter'd escapers and givers of woe. 

of the atmosphere, the weather was far too cold to permit 
the progress of decomposition to commence ; but the 
odour, even of an ordinary field of battle, is extremely 
disagreeable. I can compare it to nothing more aptly 
than the interior of a butcher's slaughter-house, soon after 
he may have killed his sheep or oxen for the market. 
Here that species of perfume was peculiarly powerful ; and 
it was not the less unpleasant that the smell of burning 
was mixed with it." — Booth's Waterloo. 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 51 

Open, ye cities! Hats off! hold breath! 
To see the man who has been with Death ; 
To see the man who determineth right 
By the virtue-perplexing virtue of might. 
Sudden before him have ceased the drums, 
And lo! in the air of empire he comes. 

All things present, in earth and sky, 
Seem to look at his looking eye. 



e2 



III. 



OF THE BALL THAT WAS GIVEN TO CAPTAIN 
SWORD. 

But Captain Sword was a man among men, 
And he hath become their playmate again : 
Boot, nor sword, nor stern look hath he, 
But holdeth the hand of a fair ladye, 
And floweth the dance a palace within, 
Half the night, to a golden din, 
Midst lights in windows and love in eyes, 
And a constant feeling of sweet surprise; 
And ever the look of Captain Sword 
Is the look that's thank'd, and the look that's 
adored. 

There was the country-dance, small of taste; 
And the waltz, that loveth the lady's waist ; 



54 CAPTAIN SWORD 

And the galopade, strange agreeable tramp, 
Made of a scrape, a hobble, and stamp ; 
And the high-stepping minuet, face to face, 
Mutual worship of conscious grace; 
And all the shapes in which beauty goes 
Weaving motion with blithe repose. 

And then a table a feast display 'd, 
Like a garden of light without a shade, 
All of gold, and flowers, and sweets, 
With wines of old church-lands, and sylvan 

meats, 
Food that maketh the blood feel choice ; 
Yet all the face of the feast, and the voice, 
And heart, still turn'd to the head of the board; 
For ever the look of Captain Sword 
Is the look that's thank'd, and the look that's 

adored . 

Well content was Captain Sword ; 
At his feet all wealth was pour'd; 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 55 

On his head all glory set; 
For his ease all comfort met; 
And around him seem'd entwined 
All the arms of womankind. 

And when he had taken his fill 
Thus, of all that pampereth will, 
In his down he sunk to rest, 
Clasp'd in dreams of all its best 



IV. 



ON WHAT TOOK PLACE ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE 
THE NIGHT AFTER THE VICTORY. 

Tis a wild night out of doors; 
The wind is mad upon the moors, 
And comes into the rocking town, 
Stabbing all things, up and down, 
And then there is a weeping rain 
Huddling 'gainst the window-pane, 
And good men bless themselves in bed ; 
The mother brings her infant's head 
Closer, with a joy like tears, 
And thinks of angels in her prayers ; 
Then sleeps, with his small hand in hers. 



58 CAPTAIN SWORD 

Two loving women, lingering yet 
Ere the fire is out, are met, 
Talking sweetly, time-beguiled, 
One of her bridegroom, one her child, 
The bridegroom he. They have received 
Happy letters, more believed 
For public news, and feel the bliss 
The heavenlier on a night like this. 
They think him housed, they think him blest, 
Curtain'd in the core of rest, 
Danger distant, all good near; 
Why hath their "Good night" a tear? 

Behold him ! By a ditch he lies 
Clutching the wet earth, his eyes 
Beginning to be mad. In vain 
His tongue still thirsts to lick the rain, 
That mock'd but now his homeward tears; 
And ever and anon he rears 
His legs and knees with all their strength, 
And then as strongly thrusts at length. 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 59 

Raised, or stretch'd, he cannot bear 

The wound that girds him, weltering there: 

And "Water!" he cries, with moon ward stare. 5 

[" I will not read it !" with a start, 
Burning cries some honest heart ; 
" I will not read it ! Why endure 
"Pangs which horror cannot cure? 

5 In vain 

His tongue still thirsts to lick the rain, 
That mock'd but now his homeward tears; 
And ever and anon he rears 
His legs and knees with all their strength, 
And then as strongly thrusts at length. 
Raised, or stretch'd, lie cannot bear 
The wound that girds him, weltering there: 
And " Water!''' he cries, with moonward stare. 
" Some poor fellows (among the wounded) could be seen 
raising their knees up to their chins, and then Jiinging 
them down with all their might. Some attempted to rise, 
but failed in the attempt. One poor fellow I saw get on his 
legs, put his hand to his bleeding head, then fall, and roll 
down the hill, to rise no more." — Memoirs of John Shipp. 
For " Water," which is the universal cry of the 
wounded on a field of battle, see an anecdote from Southey 
in the " Remarks on War." 



60 CAPTAIN SWORD 

"Why — Oh why? and rob the brave, 
"And the bereaved, of all they crave, 
"A little hope to gild the grave?" 

Ask'st thou why, thou honest heart? 
'Tis because thou dost ask, and because thou 

dost start. 
'Tis because thine own praise and fond outward 

thought 
Have aided the shews which this sorrow has 

wrought.] 

A wound unutterable — Oh God ! 
Mingles his being with the sod. 

["I'll read no more." — Thou must, thou 
must: 
In thine own pang doth wisdom trust.] 

His nails are in earth, his eyes in air. 
And "Water!" he crieth — he may not forbear. 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 61 

Brave and good was he, yet now he dreams 
The moon looks cruel; and he blasphemes. 

[" No more ! no more !" Nay, this is but one ; 
Were the whole tale told, it would not be done 
From wonderful setting to rising sun. 
But God's good time is at hand — be calm, 
Thou reader ! and steep thee in all thy balm 
Of tears or patience, of thought or good will, 
For the field — the field awaiteth us still.] 

5< Water ! water !" all over the field : 
To nothing but Death will that wound-voice 

yield. 
One, as he crieth, is sitting half bent; 
What holds he so close? — his body is rent. 
Another is mouthless, with eyes on cheek ; 
Unto the raven he may not speak. 
One would fain kill him ; and one half round 
The place where he writhes, hath up-beaten 

the ground. 



62 CAPTAIN SWORD 

Like a mad horse hath he beaten the ground, 
And the feathers and music that litter it 

round, 
The gore, and the mud, and the golden sound. 
Come hither, ye cities! ye ball-rooms, take 

breath ! 
See what a floor hath the Dance of Death ! 6 



6 "Water! water!" all over the field : 

To nothing but death will that wound-voice yield. 

One, as he crieth, Sfc. 

Come hither, ye cities ! ye ball-rooms, take breath ! 

See what a floor hath the Dance of Death. 
" A few stragglers of each party still continued en- 
gaged, and this part of the affray took place within twenty 
yards of us. One of our dragoons came to the water with 
a frightful wound ; his jaw was entirely separated from 
the upper part of his face, and hung on his breast; the 
poor fellow made an effort to drink in that wretched con- 
dition." — Cooke's Peninsular War, vol. i. p. 173. 

" I ran towards the large breach (at Ciudad Rodrigo), 
and met an officer slowly walking between two soldiers 
of the rifle corps. I asked who it was, when he faintly 
replied, * Uniacke,' and walked on. One of his eyes was 
blown out, and the flesh was torn off Ids arms and legs. 
He had taken chocolate with our mess, an hour and a half 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 63 

The floor is alive, though the lights are out ; 
What are those dark shapes, flitting about? 
Flitting about, yet no ravens they, 
Not foes, yet not friends, — mute creatures of 
prey; 

before ! He died in excruciating agony." — Cooke, 
vol. i. p. 121. 

" One round shot had struck down seven of the enemy 
on the left of the road ; some of them were dead ; others 
still alive, with either legs or arms knocked off, or other- 
wise horribly mutilated, and were crying out in extreme 
anguish, and imploring the soldiers to shoot them, and 
put an end to their dreadful sufferings. A German 
hussar, in our service, answered them that they would be 
kindly treated by our medical officers. ' No ! no !' they 
vociferated, ' we cannot bear to live. Countrymen, we 
are Germans ; pray kill us, and shorten our miseries.' '* — 
Cooke, vol. i. p. 279. 

Speaking of a man who was hacked and hewed for 
being a spy, the author says, " This poor fellow, it was 
supposed by the medical men, must have died a death 
of extreme agony, for the ground under him was dug 
up with his struggling under the torture which had 
been inflected on him." — Id. 

"When such evidence of destruction was apparent at 
a distance from the field, what a display of devastation 
the narrow theatre of yesterday's conflict must have 



64 CAPTAIN SWORD 

Their prey is lucre, their claws a knife, 
Some say they take the beseeching life. 
Horrible pity is theirs for despair, 
And they the love-sacred limbs leave bare. 



presented. Fancy may conceive it; but description 
must necessarily be scanty and imperfect. On the small 
surface of two square miles, it was ascertained that 
50,000 men and horses were lying. The luxurious crop 
of grain, which had covered the field of battle, was 
reduced to Utter, and beaten into the earth; and the 
surface trodden down by the cavalry, and furrowed 
deeply by cannon wheels, was strewn with many a relic 
of the fight. Helmets and cuirasses, scattered fire-arms 
and broken swords, all the variety of military ornaments, 
lancers' caps and Highland bonnets, uniforms of every 
colour, plume and pennon, musical instruments, the 
apparatus of artillery, drums, bugles ; but, good God, 
why dwell on the harrowing picture of a slaughter field ? 
Each and every ruinous display bore a mute testimony 
to the miseries of such a battle." — Booth's Waterloo. 

7 What are those dark shapes, flitting about? 
Their prey is lucre, their claws a knife, 
Some say they take the beseeching life : 
Horrible pity is theirs for despair, 
And they the love-sacred limbs leave bare. 
Alluding to followers of the camp, and others, who 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 65 

Love will come to-inorrow, and sadness, 
Patient for the fear of madness, 
And shut its eyes for cruelty, 
So many pale beds to see. 
Turn away, thou Love, nor weep 
More in covering his last sleep ; 
Thou hast him : — blessed is thine eye ! 
Friendless Famine has yet to die. 8 

rifle the field after the battle, and who are understood to 
kill as well as plunder. Some have been said to be 
females ! so brutalising is war. Smollett, as if in 
excuse for the execrable nature of his hero, "Count 
Fathom," has made one of these his mother. She is 
shot by a dying dragoon, while about to despatch him 
herself! 

"The dead could not be numbered; and by those who 
visited this dreadful field of glory and of death (Waterloo), 
the day after the battle, the spectacle of horror that it 
exhibited can never be forgotten. The mangled and 
lifeless bodies were even then stripped of every covering. 
Everything of the smallest value was already carried 
off." — Cooke. 

8 Turn away, thou Love, nor weep 
More in covering his last sleep ; 
F 



66 CAPTAIN SWORD 

A shriek ! — Great God ! what superhuman 

Peal was that? Not man, nor woman, 

Nor twenty madmen, crush'd, could wreak 

Their soul in such a ponderous shriek. 

Dumbly, for an instant, stares 

The field; and creep men's dying hairs. 

Thou hast him : — blessed is thine eye ! 
Friendless Famine has yet to die. 

" The battle of Waterloo was fought on a Saturday. 
The last numbers of the wounded were not carried oft" 
the field till the following Thursday. Imagine what they 
must have suffered meanwhile, not only from the agony 
of their wounds, but from thirst and starvation ! 

' ' The road between Waterloo and Brussels, which 
passes for nine miles through the thick forest of Soignes, 
was choked up with scattered baggage, broken waggons, 
and dead horses. The heavy rains, and the great passage 
upon it, had rendered it almost impassable, so that it was 
with extreme difficulty that the carriages containing the 
wounded could be brought along. The way was lined 
with unfortunate men, who had crept from the field, 
and many, unable to go farther, lay down and died : 
holes dug by the road-side served as their graves, and 
the road, weeks after the battle, was strewn with the 
tattered remains of their clothes and accoutrements. In 
every village and hamlet, on every road, in every part of 
the country ,for thirty miles round, wounded soldiers were 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 67 

O friend of man ! noble creature ! 
Patient and brave, and mild by nature, 
Mild by nature, and mute as mild, 
Why brings he to these passes wild, 
Thee, gentle horse, thou shape of beauty ? 
Could he not do his dreadful duty, 
(If duty it be, which seems mad folly) 
Nor link thee to his melancholy? 

found wandering ; the wounded Belgic and Dutch strag- 
glers exerted themselves as much as possible to reach their 
own homes. So great were the numbers of the wounded, 
that, notwithstanding the most active and unremitted 
exertions, the last were not removed from the field of battle 
into Brussels till the Thursday following ." — Page xxxii. 
" I will not attempt to describe the scene of slaughter 
which the fields presented, or what any person possessed 
of the least spark of humanity must have felt, while 
we viewed the dreadful situation of some thousands of 
wounded wretches, who remained without assistance 
through a bitter cold night, succeeded by a day of most 
scorching heat. English and French were dying by the 
side of each other, and I have no doubt hundreds, who 
were not discovered when the dead were buried, and 
who were unable to crawl to any habitation, must have 
perished by famine." — Page xlii. 
f2 



68 CAPTAIN SWORD 

Two noble steeds lay side by side, 
One cropp'd the meek grass ere it died ; 
Pang-struck it struck t' other, already torn, 
And out of its bowels that shriek was born. 9 

Now see what crawleth, well as it may, 
Out of the ditch, and looketh that way. 
What horror all black, in the sick moonlight, 
Kneeling, half human, a burthensome sight; 
Loathly and liquid, as fly from a dish ; 
Speak, Horror! thou, for it withereth flesh. 

"The grass caught fire; the wounded were by ; 

Writhing till eve did a remnant lie; 

Then feebly this coal abateth his cry; 

9 Two noble steeds lay side by side, 
One cropp'd the meek grass ere it died ; 
Pang-struck it struck f other, already torn, 
And out of its bowels that shriek was born. 
I have mislaid the memorandum recording this appal- 
ling circumstance. The horse rarely utters a voice, even 
in health and joy, which renders its cry of agony par- 
ticularly horrific. 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 69 

But he hopeth! he hopeth ! joy lighteth his eye, 
For gold he possesseth, and Murder is nigh!" ,0 

goodness in horror ! O ill not all ill ! 
In the worst of the worst may be fierce Hope 
still. 



10 Now see what crawleth, well as it may, 
Out of the ditch, and looketh that way. 

"The grass caught fire ; the wounded were by ; 
Writhing till eve did a remnant lie ; 
Then feebly this coal abateth his cry ; 
But he hopeth ! he hopeth ! joy lighteth his eye, 
For gold he possesseth, and Murder is nigh!" 
He hopes to be put out of his misery by the wretches 
before mentioned. 

"About six o'clock in the evening a dreadful occur- 
rence took place. The long dry grass took fire, and the 
flames spreading rapidly over the field of action, a great 
number of the wounded were scorched to death. For 
those who escaped a large hospital was established in the 
town of Talavera." — Peninsular Campaign, vol. ii. p. 244. 
"The French as well as the British soldiers, at the 
siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, were carried up into the air, or 
jammed amongst the rubbish, some with heads, arms, or 
legs, sticking out of the earth. I saw one of the unfor- 
tunate soldiers in a blanket, with his face , head, and 



70 CAPTAIN SWORD 

To-morrow with dawn will come many a 

wain, 
And bear away loads of human pain, 

body as black as a coal, and cased in a black substance 
like a shell ; his features were no longer distinguishable, 
and all his hair was singed from off his head, but still the 
unfortunate man was alive. How long he lived in this 
horrible situation I cannot say." — Cooke, vol. i. p. 128. 

"As we moved off, the dead and the dying lay under 
the trees (the trunks of many of them in flames), pale 
and shivering, with their bloody congealed bandages, 
imploring us not to leave them in that horrible situation, 
in the middle of the forest in the depth of winter. How- 
ever, to attempt to afford them assistance was impossible. 
Every individual had enough to do to drag himself along, 
after three days' privation." — Cooke, vol. i. p. 239. 

"Two of our men, and four sepoys of the 70th, in the 
unthinking way peculiar to the lower classes, went and 
sat down by one of the ammunition waggons we had 
captured, when the Europeans took out their pipes, and 
began to smoke ; a spark communicated with the powder. 
and the whole blew up, leaving these six poor fellows 
hopelessly scorched on the ground. One man's head was 
blown off, and he was the happiest of the whole — for the 
agony the others must have suffered is indescribable. 
One of them started up and commenced running about 
all in flames, until, overcome with the torment, he fell to 



i 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 71 

Piles of pale beds for the 'spitals ; but some 
Again will awake in home-mornings, and some, 
Dull herds of the war, again follow the drum. 

the ground. All this time no one dared to go near him, 
as his ammunition pad was in a blaze, and had not yet 
exploded. It was fearful to see the flames eating into 
his vitals, and his unavailing struggles to free himself 
from them. At last I saw a piece of a tent lying on the 
ground, which I snatched up and threw over him : but 
there was no hope for him. All of them, in their agony, 
had torn off every stitch of clothing ; and the black and 
scorched flesh hanging in strips — their withered tongues 
protruding from their mouths, in which the blood was 
gurgling, as they gasped for breath — their faces like 
blackened masks, and their eyes starting from their 
sockets — their groans, and the screams for water, with 
which they pointed to their parched mouths, showed a 
frightful picture of some of the horrors attendant upon 
war. They were all taken to the hospital instantly; 
but none was likely to recover. I hope I may never wit- 
ness such a sight again — excruciating suffering without 
the power of rendering assistance. The commander-in- 
chief came down the line just after this catastrophe, and 
we stood to our arms and cheered him as he passed." — 
Journal of a Subaltern during the Campaign in the 
Punjab . (Extracted into the i ' Manchester Examiner, ' ' 
and « Times.") 



72 CAPTAIN SWORD 

From others, faint blood shall in families flow, 
With wonder at life, and young oldness in woe, 
Yet hence may the movers of great earth grow. 11 
Now, even now, I hear them at hand, 
Though again Captain Sword is up in the land, 
Marching anew for more fields like these 
In the health of his flag in the morning breeze. 

Sneereth the trumpet, and stampeth the drum, 
And again Captain Sword in his pride doth 
come; 

11 Piles of pale beds for the 'spitals, Sfc. 

From others, faint blood shall in families flow, 
With wonder at life, and young oldness in woe, 
Yet hence may the movers of great earth grow. 
It is forgotten, amidst the medals, and titles, and annual 
feasts, and other " glories" that follow the miseries of war, 
how many maimed and blood-saddened men are still 
suffering in hospitals and private houses ; and how much 
offspring, in all probability, is rendered sickly and melan- 
choly. The author of the present poem believes that he 
owes the worst part of his constitution to the illness and 
anxiety caused, to one of the best of mothers, by the 
American war. 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 73 

He passeth the fields where his friends lie lorn, 
Feeding the flowers and the feeding corn, 12 
Where under the sunshine cold they lie, 
And he hasteth a tear from his old grey eye. 13 

12 Feeding the flowers and the feeding corn. 

" Every tree in the wood of Hougoumont is pierced 
with balls ; in one alone, I counted the holes where up- 
wards of twenty had lodged. But the strokes which 
were fatal to human life have not actually injured 
them ; though their trunks are filled with balls, and their 
branches broken and destroyed, their verdure is still the 
same. Wild flowers are still blooming, and wild rasp- 
berries ripening beneath their shade ; while huge black 
piles of human ashes, dreadfully offensive in smell, are 
all that now remain of the heroes who fought and fell 
upon the fatal spot. Beside some graves, at the out- 
skirts of this wood, the little wild flower, Forget-me-not — 
('mysostis arvensis,') was blooming, and the flaring red 
poppy had already sprung up around, and even upon 
them, as if in mockery of the dead." —Booth's Waterloo, 
p. xix. 

13 And he hasteth a tear from his old grey eye. 
The tears of an old soldier for the fate of his comrades 

are some of the most affecting in the world, and do him 
immortal honour; far more honour than thousands of 
things which are considered more glorifying. 



74 CAPTAIN SWORD 

Small thinking is his but of work to be done, 
And onward he marcheth, using the sun : 
He slayeth, he wasteth, he spouteth his fires 
On babes at the bosom, and bed-rid sires ; u 

" They parted : Blucher proceeded on his way — Lord 
Wellington returned to "Waterloo. As he crossed again 
the fatal scene, on which the silence of death had now 
succeeded to the storm of battle, the moon breaking from 
dark clouds shed an uncertain light upon thb wide field 
of carnage, covered with mangled thousands of that 
gallant army, whose heroic valour had won for him the 
brightest wreath of victory, and left to future time an 
imperishable monument of their country's fame. He 
saw himself surrounded by the bloody corpses of his 
veteran soldiers, who had followed him through distant 
lands — of his friends — of his associates in arms — his com- 
panions through many an eventful year of danger and 
of glory ; in that awful pause which follows the mortal 
conflict of man with man, emotions, unknown or stifled 
in the heat of battle, forced their way ; the feelings of the 
man triumphed over those of the general, and in the 
very hour of victory Lord Wellington burst into tears.'" 

14 He slayeth, he wasteth, he spouteth his fires 
On babes at the bosom, and bed-rid sires. 
" Long ere the hour of the sun's decline, it grew as dark 
as midnight. About ten o'clock the terrific shelling 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 75 

He bursteth pale cities, through smoke and 

through yell, 
And bringeth behind him, hot-blooded, his hell. 

commenced, every whistling shell bearing on its lighted 
wings messengers of death and desolation. I never saw 
these implements of destruction so accurately thrown — 
some of them scarcely five inches above the walls of the 
fort. In five minutes the screams of the women in the 
fort were dreadful. In places so confined, where number- 
less houses were crowded together, every shell must have 
found its way to some poor wretch's dwelling, and per- 
haps torn from mothers' bosoms their clinging babes. 
No person can estimate the dreadful carnage committed 
by shells, but those whose fate it has been to witness the 
effects of these messengers of death. On this occasion our 
shells were very numerous, and of enormous size, many of 
them thirteen inches and a half in calibre. The system 
of shelling had been so improved, in the twelve years 
which had elapsed since the siege of Bhurtpore, that, 
instead of about one shell in about five minutes from a 
single battery, it was by no means extraordinary to see 
twenty in one minute, from the numerous batteries which 
were brought to bear on this place. It was, at times, 
truly awful, to see ten of these soaring in the air together, 
seemingly riding on the midnight breeze, and disturbing 
the slumbering clouds on their pillows of rest ; all trans- 
porting to a destined spot the implements of havoc and 



76 CAPTAIN SWORD 

Then the weak door is barr'd, and the soul all 

sore, 
And hand-wringing helplessness paceth the 

floor, 

desolation contained within their iron sides. The moon 
hid herself, in seeming pensiveness, behind a dense black 
cloud, as though reluctant to look on such a scene in its 
garb of blackest woe. Some carcaroes were also thrown. 
These, when in the air, are not unlike a fiery man soar- 
ing above. They are sent to burn houses, or blow up 
magazines. Far and wide they stretch forth their claws 
of death; and well might the poor natives call them 
devils of the night, or fiends of the clouds. To complete 
this dreadful scene, the roaring Congreves ran along the 
bastion's top, breaking legs and arms, with their shaking 
tails. Nothing could be more grand to the eye, or more 
affecting to the heart, than this horrid spectacle. Still 
the superstitious foe were stimulated by some hoary priest 
with hopes of victory, while they imbrued their hands in the 
blood of their children, their parents, and their friends. Our 
shells found their way to their very cells, tearing babes 
from their mothers' bosoms, and dealing death and de- 
struction around. Oh ! what must be the anguish of a 
fond mother, to see nothing but the head of her fondling 
hanging to her bosom! I will relate one melancholy 
case of this kind, out of numbers that came within my 
observation, and actually happened at this place : — 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 77 

"A female was lying on a bed of green silk, under her 
head was a pillow of the same material ; her right arm 
had, no doubt, cradled her babe, and her left was extended, 
as though for the purpose of keeping her child close to 
her. A large shell had perforated the tiled roof, and 
having made its way through three floors, had gone 
through the foot of the bed and penetrated some depth 
into the fourth floor. A piece of this shell had gone 
through the woman's forehead, carrying away a great 
part of her head, so that her death, according to the 
opinion of a medical man who saw her, must have been 
instantaneous. The lower part of the child's body, from 
the hips downwards, was entirely gone ; but, strange to 
say, its mother's nipple still hung in the left corner of 
its mouth, and its little right hand still held by its 
mother's clothes, which, probably, it had grasped at the 
first noise of the shell. We understood that this woman 
was the wife of a most respectable officer in the fort, who 
had met his death some hours before her, and was, there- 
fore, in pity spared the afflicting sight. Such, reader, 
are the scenes of war. Such are the scenes which 
soldiers in the course of service are called upon to 
witness. The poor woman and her babe were com- 
mitted to the grave ; probably the first of her generation 
that ever returned to the earth as her last home, for she 
was a Hindoo woman. 

" Near a small village, a beautiful young woman, about 
sixteen, had been seen, and ultimately seized. Her hus- 
band, to whom she had been wedded only about three 
months, was one of those who were killed when the 



78 CAPTAIN SWORD 

magazine blew up. From that period, nothing could 
soothe her or appease her grief ; no power could restrain 
her ; and at last she escaped into an adjoining wood or 
rumna. When I saw her she was running wildly ; but 
at times she would pause, hold up her finger, and tell you 
to listen, when she would exclaim, with the most heart- 
rending shriek, — ' That was him ! It was he that did 
speak ! — Yet now he is gone ! ' Then the poor bewil- 
dered maniac would tear her coal-black hair, which was 
hanging in ringlets down her back and bosom, and at 
length sink exhausted to the ground. She was taken to 
the camp and committed to the care of some of her rela- 
tions, who had been taken prisoners. 

" How it was possible that a single individual could 
have escaped such a bombardment was to us a mystery ; 
for large houses were literally torn up by the roots. 
They had thrown a great number of their dead into a 
well, and many lay in the ditch, a melancholy and re- 
volting sight, for the sun had swollen them to an enor- 
mous size. 

" It seems that the moment any of their children were 
killed, in houses remote from the well, they were thrown 
into the street. I counted five limbless babes in one 
street." — Military Career of John Shipp, vol. ii. p. 190. 

" Long will the Sikhs have cause to remember the 
battle of Goojerat. The whole line of their flight was 
strewed with dead. We advanced into their camp over 
heaps of dead and dying. It wanted nothing more to 
show the gallant stand they had made. Everything was 
in confusion — tumbrils overturned, guns dismounted, wag- 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 79 

gons with their wheels off, oxen and camels rushing wildly 
about, wounded horses plunging in their agony, beds, 
blankets, boxes, ammunition, strewed about the ground 
in a perfect chaos ; the wounded lying there groaning, 
some begging to be despatched, others praying for mercy, 
and some, with scowling looks of impotent rage, striving 
to cut down those who came near them, and thereby in- 
suring their own destruction, for but little quarter, I am 
ashamed to say, was given, and even those we managed 
to save from the vengeance of our men were, I fear, 
killed afterwards. But, after all, it is a war of extermina- 
tion. The most heart-rending sight of the day was one I 
witnessed in a tent I entered. There, on the ground, 
bleeding to death, lay a young mother; her leg had been 
carried off by a round shot, and the jagged stump pro- 
truded in a ghastly manner through the mangled flesh. 
She held a baby to her breast, and as she bent over it 
with maternal anxiety, all her thoughts seemed to be of 
her child. She appeared totally regardless of the agony 
she must have been suffering, and to think of nothing but 
the poor infant, which was drawing its nourishment from 
her failing breast. I gave her some water, and she drank 
it greedily, raising her large imploring eyes to my face, 
with an expression that was heart-rending to witness. I 
was obliged to leave the poor creature, and go on with 
the regiment, but the remembrance of that sight will live 
with me till my dying day." — Extract from the Journal 
of a Subaltern of the 2nd Europeans, in the Battle of 
Goojerat. (From the "Times" ) 



80 CAPTAIN SWORD 

And the lover is slain, and the parents are 
nigh— 15 

Oh God ! let me breathe, and look up at thy 
sky! 
Good is as hundreds, evil as one ; 
Round about goeth the golden sun. 

15 And the lover is slain, and the parents are nigh. 

" We have the assurance of Marshal Suchet, that the 
officers of his army made tremendous exertions to stop the 
carnage. But the soldiers, with hands already steeped in 
blood, would not be restrained. Within and without the 
town the slaughter continued with unabated ferocity. 
The claims of age and sex were disregarded. Those who 
sought refuge in the churches were massacred, even at 
the altar. Beauty, helplessness, and innocence, did not 
save life, though they ensured violation.' '' — Peninsular 
War, vol. iii. p. 131. 

"This successful achievement was followed by the 
usual scenes of riot and excess. The men, no longer 
amenable to discipline, ransacked the houses in search of 
plunder. The cellars were broken open, and emptied of 
their contents ; many houses were wantonly set on fire ; 
and the yells of brutal triumph, uttered by the intoxicated 
soldiers, were heard in wild dissonance with the screams 
of the wounded. Thus passed the night. In the morn- 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 81 

ing, by the exertions of the officers, discipline was par- 
tially restored. The soldiers by degrees returned to their 
duty, and the blind appetites of their brutal natures 
became again subjected to moral restraint." — Vol. iii. 
p. 188. 

"As soon as the fighting (at St. Sebastian's, in Spain) 
began to wax faint, the horrors of rapine and plunder 
succeeded. Fortunately, there were few females in the 
place; but of the fate of the few which were there, I 
cannot even think without a shudder. The houses were 
everywhere ransacked, the furniture wantonly broken, 
the churches profaned, the images dashed to pieces; 
wine and spirit cellars were broken open, and the troops, 
heated already with angry passions, became absolutely 
mad by intoxication. All order and discipline were aban- 
doned. The officers no longer had the slightest control 
over their men, who, on the contrary, controlled the 
officers ; nor is it by any means certain that several of the 
latter did not fall by the hands of the former, when they 
vainly attempted to bring them to a sense of submission. 

" Night had now set in, but the darkness was effectu- 
ally dispelled by the glare of burning houses, which one 
after another took fire. The morning of the 31st had 
risen upon St. Sebastian, as neat and regularly built a 
town as any in Spain — long before midnight it was one 
sheet of flame ; and by noon, on the following day, little 
remained of it except its smoking ashes. The houses 
being lofty, like those in the Old Town of Edinburgh, 
and the streets straight and narrow, the fire flew from 
one to another with extraordinary rapidity. At first, 



82 CAPTAIN SWORD 

some attempts were made to extinguish it, but these soon 
proved useless, and then the only matter to be considered 
was how, personally, to escape its violence. Many a 
migration was accordingly effected from house to house, 
till, at last, houses enough to shelter all could no longer 
be found, and the streets became the place of rest to the 
majority. 

"The spectacle which these presented was truly shock- 
ing. A strong light falling on them, from the burning 
houses, disclosed crowds of dead, dying, and intoxicated 
men, huddling indiscriminately together. Carpets, rich 
tapestry, beds, curtains, wearing apparel, and everything 
valuable to persons in common life, were carelessly scat- 
tered about upon the bloody pavement, whilst ever and 
anon fresh bundles of these were thrown from the win- 
dows above. Here you would see a drunken fellow 
whirling a string of watches round his head, and then 
dashing them against the wall ; there another, more pro- 
vident, stuffing his bosom with such smaller articles as 
he most prized. Next would come a party rolling a cask 
of wine, or spirits, with loud acclamations, which in an 
instant was tapped, and in an incredibly short space of 
time emptied of its contents. Then the ceaseless hum of 
conversation, the occasional laugh, and wild shout of 
intoxication, the pitiable cries, or deep moans of the 
wounded, and the unintermitted roar of the flames, pro- 
duced altogether such a concert as no man who listened 
to it can ever forget. 

"After these various noises, the greater number began 
gradually to subside, as night passed on — and long before 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 83 

dawn there "was a fearful silence. Sleep had succeeded 
inebriety with the bulk of the army — of the poor wretches 
who groaned and shrieked three hours ago, many had 
expired ; and the very fire had almost consumed itself, by 
consuming everything upon which it could feed. No- 
thing, therefore, could now be heard, except an occasional 
faint moan, scarcely distinguishable from the heavy 
breathings of the sleepers, and even that was soon heard 
no more." 



HOW CAPTAIN SWORD, IN CONSEQUENCE OF HIS 
GREAT VICTORIES, BECAME INFIRM IN HIS 
WITS. 

But to win at the game, whose moves are 

death, 
It maketh a man draw too proud a breath : 
And to see his force taken for reason and 

right, 
It tendeth to unsettle his reason quite. 
Never did chief of the line of Sword 
Keep his wits whole at that drunken board. 
He taketh the size, and the roar, and fate, 
Of the field of his action, for soul as great : 



86 CAPTAIN SWORD 

He sniiteth and stunneth the cheek of mankind, 
And saith, " Lo ! I rule both body and mind/' 

Captain Sword forgot his own soul, 
Which of aught save itself, resented control ; 
Which whatever his deeds, ordained them still, 
Bodiless monarch, enthroned in his will : 
He forgot the close thought, and the burning 

heart, 
And pray'rs, and the mild moon hanging 

apart, 
Which lifted the seas with her gentle looks, 
And growth, and death, and immortal books, 
And the Infinite Mildness, the soul of souls, 
Which layeth earth soft 'twixt her silver poles ; 
Which ruleth the stars, and saith not a word ; 
Whose speed in the hair of no comet is heard ; 
Which sendeth the soft sun, day by day, 
Mighty, and genial, and just alway, 
Owning no difference, doing no wrong, 
Loving the orbs and the least bird's song, 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 87 

The great, sweet, warm angel, with golden 

rod, 
Bright with the smile of the distance of God. 

Captain Sword, like a witless thing, 
Of all under heaven must needs be a king, 
King of kings, and lord of lords, 
Swayer of souls as well as of swords, 
Ruler of speech, and through speech, of 

thought ; 
And hence to his brain was a madness brought. 
He madden'd in East, he madden'd in West, 
Fiercer for sights of men's unrest, 
Fiercer for talk, amongst awful men, 
Of their new mighty leader, Captain Pen, 
A conqueror strange, who sat in his home 
Like the wizard that plagued the ships of 

Rome, 
Noiseless, showless, dealing no death, 
But victories, winged, went forth from his 

breath. 



88 CAPTAIN SWORD 

Three thousand miles across the waves* 
Did Captain Sword cry, bidding souls be slaves: 
Three thousand miles did the echo return 
With a laugh and a blow made his old cheeks 
burn. 

Then he call'd to a wrong-madden'd people, 

and swore f 
Their name in the map should never be more : 
Dire came the laugh, and smote worse than 

before. 
Were earthquake a giant, up-thrusting his head 
And o'erlooking the nations, not worse were 

the dread. 

Then, lo ! was a wonder, and sadness to 
see; 
For with that very people, their leader, stood 
he, 

* The American "War. t The French War. 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 89 

Incarnate afresh, like a Caesar of old ;* 
But because he look'd back, and his heart was 

cold, 
Time, hope, and himself for a tale he sold, 
Oh largest occasion, by man ever lost! 
Oh throne of the world, to the war-dogs tost ! 

He vanish'd ; and thinly there stood in his 

place 
The new shape of Sword, with an humbler 

face,f 
Rebuking his brother, and preaching for right, 
Yet aye when it came, standing proud on his 

might, 
And squaring its claims with his old small sight ; 
Then struck up his drums, with ensign furl'd, 
And said, " I will walk through a subject 

world : 

* Napoleon. 
f The Duke of Wellington, or existing Military Toryism. 



90 CAPTAIN SWORD 

Earth, just as it is, shall for ever endure. 
The rich be too rich, aud the poor too poor ; 
And for this I'll stop knowledge. I'll say to 

it, < Flow 
Thus far ; but presume no farther to flow : 
For me, as I list, shall the free airs blow.' " 

Laugh'd after him loudly that land so fair,* 
" The king thou sett'st over us, by a free air 
Is swept away, senseless." And old Sword 

then 
First knew the might of great Captain Pen. 
So strangely it bow'd him, so wilder'd his 

brain, 
That now he stood, hatless, renouncing his 

reign ; 
Now mutter'd of dust laid in blood ; and now 
'Twixt wonder and patience went lifting his 

brow. 

* The Glorious Three Days. 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 91 

Then suddenly came he, with gowned men, 

And said, " Now observe me — I'm Captain 

Pen: 
Fll lead all your changes — I'll write all your 

books — 
I'm everything — all things — I'm clergymen, 

cooks, 
Clerks, carpenters, hosiers, — I'm Pitt — I'm 

Lord Grey." 

'Twas painful to see his extravagant way ; 
But heart ne'er so bold, and hand ne'er so 

strong, 
What are they, when truth and the wits go 

wrong? 



VI. 



OF CAPTAIN PEN, AND HOW HE FOUGHT WITH 
CAPTAIN SWORD. 

Now tidings of Captain Sword and his state 
Were brought to the ears of Pen the Great, 
Who rose and said, " His time is come." 
And he sent him, but not by sound of drum, 
Nor trumpet, nor other hasty breath, 
Hot with questions of life and death, 
But only a letter calm and mild; 
And Captain Sword he read it, and smiled, 
And said, half in scorn, and nothing in fear, 
(Though his wits seem'd restor'd by a danger 
near, 



94 CAPTAIN SWORD 

For brave was he ever), " Let Captain Pen 
Bring at his back a million men, 
And I'll talk with his wisdom, and not till then." 
Then replied to his messenger Captain Pen, 
" I'll bring at my back a world of men." 

Out laugh'd the captains of Captain Sword, 
But their chief look'd vex'd, and said not a 

word, 
For thought and trouble had touch'd his ears 
Beyond the bullet-like sense of theirs, 
And wherever he went, he was 'ware of a sound 
Now heard in the distance, now gathering round, 
Which irk'd him to know what the issue might 

be; 
But the soul of the cause of it well guess'd he. 

Indestructible souls among men 
Were the souls of the line of Captain Pen ; 
Sages, patriots, martyrs mild, 
Going to the stake, as child 






AND CAPTAIN PEN. 95 

Goeth with his prayer to bed; 

Dungeon-beams, from quenchless head ; 

Poets, making earth aware 

Of its wealth in good and fair; 

And the benders to their intent, 

Of metal and of element ; 

Of flame the enlightener, beauteous, 

And steam, that bursteth his iron house; 

And adamantine giants blind, 

That, without master, have no mind. 

Heir to these, and all their store, 
Was Pen, the power unknown of yore ; 
And as their might still created might, 
And each work'd for him by day and by night, 
In wealth and wondrous means he grew, 
Fit to move the earth anew; 
Till his fame began to speak 
Pause, as when the thunders wake, 
Muttering in the beds of heaven: 
Then, to set the globe more even, 



96 CAPTAIN SWORD 

Water he call'd, and Fire, and Haste, 
Which hath left old Time displaced — 
And Iron, mightiest now for Pen, 
Each of his steps like an army of men — 
(Sword little knew what was leaving him then) 
And out of the witchcraft of their skill, 
A creature he call'd, to wait on his will — 
Half iron, half vapour, a dread to behold — 
Which evermore panted and evermore roll'd, 
And uttered his words a million fold. 
Forth sprang they in air, down raining like 

dew, 
And men fed upon them, and mighty they 



Ears giddy with custom that sound might 

not hear, 
But it woke up the rest, like an earthquake 

near ; 
And that same night of the letter, some strange 
Compulsion of soul brought a sense of change; 



« 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 97 

And at midnight the sound grew into a roll 
As the sound of all gath'rings from pole to pole, 
From pole unto pole, and from clime to clime, 
Like the roll of the wheels of the coming of 

time ; — 
A sound as of cities, and sound as of swords 
Sharpening, and solemn and terrible words, 
And laughter as solemn, and thunderous drum- 
ming, 
A tread as if all the world were coming. 
And then was a lull, and soft voices sweet 
Call'd into music those terrible feet, 
Which rising on wings, lo ! the earth went round 
To the burn of their speed with a golden sound ; 
With a golden sound, and a swift repose, 
Such as the blood in the young heart knows ; 
Such as Love knows, when his tumults cease ; 
When all is quick, and yet all is at peace. 

And when Captain Sword got up next morn, 
Lo! a new-faced world was born; 

H 



98 CAPTAIN SWORD 

For not an anger nor pride would it show, 
Nor aught of the loftiness now found low, 
Nor would his own men strike a single blow : 
Not a blow for their old, unconsidering lord 
Would strike the good soldiers of Captain 

Sword ; 
But weaponless all, and wise they stood, 
In the level dawn, and calm brotherly good ; 
Yet bowed to hiin they, and kiss'd his hands, 
For such were their new good lord's commands, 
Lessons rather, and brotherly plea; 
Reverence the past, O brothers, quoth he; 
Reverence the struggle and mystery, 
And faces human in their pain ; 
Nor his the least that could sustain 
Cares of mighty wars, and guide 
Calmly where the red deaths ride. 

"But how! what now?" cried Captain Sword ; 
" Not a blow for your gen'ral? not even a word ? 
What ! traitors ? deserters ?" 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 99 

"Ah no!" cried they; 
" But the ' game's' at an end ; the ' wise ' won't 
play." 

" And where's your old spirit ?" 

"The same, though another; 
Man may be strong without maiming his 
brother." 

" But enemies V s 

" Enemies ! Whence should they come, 
When all interchange what was but known to 
some ?" 

"But famine? but plague? worse evils by 
far." 

"O last mighty rhet'ric to charm us to 
war! 



100 CAPTAIN SWORD 

Look round — what has earth, now it equably 

speeds, 
To do with these foul and calamitous needs? 
Now it equably speeds, and thoughtfully 

glows, 
And its heart is open, never to close?" 

" Still I can govern," said Captain Sword ; 
" Fate I respect ; and I stick to my word." 
And in truth so he did ; but the word was one 
He had sworn to all vanities under the sun, 
To do, for their conq 'rors, the least could be 

done. 
Besides, what had he with his worn-out story, 
To do with the cause he had wrong'd, and 
the glory? 

No : Captain Sword a sword was still, 
He could not unteach his lordly will; 
He could not attemper his single thought ; 
It might not be bent, nor newly wrought : 



/ 



AND CAPTAIN PEN. 101 

And so, like the tool of a disused art, 
He stood at his wall, and rusted apart. 

'Twas only for many-soul'd Captain Pen 
To make a world of swordless men. 



J- Unwin, Greshas? Steam Press, Bucklersbury, London. 



' 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

■I 





014490 776 






sJP 



i 



~>>^i? 






> J* 






^». z 



5*> '^L 



